Nostalgia Is A Mind Trick

Or notes on how you can take an eldest daughter out of the house, but you can’t take the home out of… I don’t know, something like that.

Sundaze Book Café is the home of everyday magic, joyful living and conversations likely to be had over a hot drink with a friend in your favourite café, capturing the syrup-slow feel and glow of a Sunday. I’m Michelle, and I’ll be your host this Sunday.

I have a tendency to romanticise the ordinary. To find meaning in every moment.

But you knew that already.

In January, with a suitcase and two boxes not-so-neatly piled with my essentials, I moved in with my boyfriend for the first time. It meant that, to start the year, I experienced many ‘lasts’. There was the last time my dog and I would wake up in the borrowed bed that healed my heart. The last time I’d make a solo girl dinner in our family home. The last time I’d cohabit with my little sister; my best friend. The last time I’d unpack my weekend bag after staying at my boyfriend’s.

Still, heavy with the burden of leaving the family home as an eldest daughter¹, I’ve traversed a universe of emotion since settling in at the new place. In January, I wrote this:

Leaving home as an eldest daughter is a pick-and-mix paper bag of emotions assaulting me at every turn. Guilt, for finding my feet and moving on to a new chapter of my life without taking care of my siblings and immigrant parents first. Fear, that I’ve been adulting ‘wrong’ somehow, despite caring for my siblings since I was about six years old. Excitement, to pour all of my third parent energy into building a life and home with my love. Anxiety, that I’m a terrible daughter for going it alone.

To be honest, I’d been so overexcited at the thought of this new chapter with him that I didn’t fully surmise what it’d be like to leave home for a final time. I’ve moved out before, but this move felt different. Fresh and new, yes, but also safe and comforting. Perhaps that’s a feeling I’ve sought all my life. I sit on our sofa, curled up in the new blanket we chose together, enjoying a relaxing evening at home until guilt worms its way to me that I’m somehow selfishly taking time for myself instead of taking care of my siblings or a household chore at the family home. I’m midway through the weekly Big Clean™ when I feel wracked by the ghost of fear that I’m cleaning the worktops ‘wrong’ or that I’m not doing it in the order my mother had assumed in her mind. Now, I also feel sadness that I’m not at home, amongst the chaos that I know to be home. As the eldest daughter and first-born child in our first-generation immigrant Chinese family in England², I’m still working through years of trauma and angst and heavy-set emotions. Although I love and admire my parents deeply, I was parentified at a small age. I was reminded daily that I needed to set a good example to my younger siblings and cousins. I translated documents and signage and and and for my parents as soon as my English was good enough. I cooked and cleaned through my early teenage years while my parents worked at our takeaway restaurant. From a small age, I have never not known responsibility. It’s a heavy burden to bear.

In the weeks post-move, I returned to our family home to pick up odds and ends. I perched on the top step with my dog as Mum and my sister pottered downstairs, and realised I could hardly breathe. I welled up with tears. It’s funny the things you’ll miss about your old home life when you once thought you’d miss nothing at all. The truth is it’s difficult to leave things behind; knowing the rhythms of your family’s days, the getting-home routine with your beloved family dog, impromptu dance parties, no-word conversations only possible with your sister. With each visit, things felt easier. And, it’s been a crucial part of healing my Eldest Daughter Syndrome. Seeing small(er) slices of my family’s everyday mundane from an outsider’s lens reminds me that life goes on. It moves forward. Even though you felt like you had to keep everybody’s plates spinning, they’re doing fine without you. You’re doing fine without them.

Nostalgia is a mind trick³. I once dreamed of moving in with my boyfriend and all of the lovely rituals we’d form and the home we’d create together. Now that that’s my reality, I am wistful for the days of waiting for ‘my turn’ in the kitchen, of lazing on my sister’s bed as we mused about our plans for the evening, of spontaneous moments with her now that we must schedule sister dates. I dream of how much I was depended on as an eldest daughter, now that I can gratefully share the burden with my wonderful partner.

I have a tendency to romanticise the ordinary. To find meaning in every moment.

1. Eldest Daughter Syndrome is the term used to describe ‘heavy emotional burden and responsibility first-born girls often face’ according to VeryHealth.

2. Eldest Daughter Syndrome takes on a new set of burdens in those of daughters in immigrant families. Translation skills, housekeeping and childminding due to parents working often long hours for their own businesses.

3. There’s your Swiftie reference of the week!