Lately, coaching has been more and more of a burden. I am extremely burned out and struggling with seeing such an overwhelming lack of motivation every practice.  I very much miss the days of training with people striving to do better.

In the grand scheme of things, I'm sure my family problems are inconsequential. I know I could have worse problems but I'm so angry right now.

I have always known that despite my ethnicity, I have few qualities commonly associated with the Chinese culture. Most of all, I lack a sense of familial obligation. Sometimes this is glaringly obvious to me when I am around other families. Abstractly, I understand the idea and recognize the virtues of supporting family no matter how tedious the task. But I don't feel drawn to be around my family--it's quite the opposite actually. Of course I can say that I love my parents but most times it feels like I'm just throwing out the word as a substitute for "thanks for raising me and that's about it". I have almost no desire to be around my family and while of course I wouldn't want to do without them, I would rather appreciate that fact from very afar.

Why am I this way? Most of the time, I blame the way I was raised. I would think that loyalty to your parents is a value that can only be instilled. But I don't think I ever developed respect for my parents. I used to feel connected to my mom for all the time she put in supporting me but as I grew older, she turned petty and immature in my eyes trying to deal with my little sister and her slew of issues. My dad on the other hand, I have never felt his personal support. Yes, he does all the important things like provide money and health insurance. But I suppose between the terrible fights my parents had while I was a kid and his lacking presence in any of the things I pursued (school, wushu, whatever), I never saw him with respect or admiration. He wasn't cold, but so completely self-involved, flighty, and utterly fickle. He's the type of dad that pretends to be there for you but as soon as something inconveniences him, he wants out and will just abandon the task at hand.

So there lies the issue, that I feel like I don't owe my parents for anything that I have accomplished to date. Of course I know that I owe them for the socioeconomic class we're in so I went to great schools and I'm lucky to have good health insurance and the resources to be involved in extracurricular activities as a kid. But I suppose I take those things for granted and can only feel the lack of emotional involvement or support. I'm just so tired of thinking I should try reaching out to them and when I try to ask for help, I get my hand slapped away. The fact that my dad keeps a scorecard and tells me I owe him for things like living in his house just makes me so bitter and hateful. I just want to cut my ties completely when he says I'm indebted to him.

Lately, I've been wondering how much I've let my injuries and surgeries define me. On one hand, the experiences were serious and altered my life. But there's a part of me that says, "this is nothing compared to what others have gone through". So were those experiences meaningful or just randomly unfortunate? Should I consider those events to be crucibles in my life? I'm not sure. Mostly, I think I just don't know if I should let those experiences be what distinguishes me from other people.

I went to my five-year high school reunion and it was just weird to get a feel for people's impression of me. When I was talking to one old classmate about applying to medical school, he looked at me and said "of course it's the jocks and athletes that want to go into orthopedics". It made me think, "aw crap, am I a jock?" But the experience made me even more aware of how much wushu and my injuries define who I am to people who aren't close to me.