About 2 months ago, I wrote a post titled, “Why I’m skipping a trip to China“. It’s about all the reasons why I don’t want to go to China. That was when my mom was trying to convince me to go to China with my aunt in September. I managed to dodge that bullet but in the last week or so, my mom has been trying to convince me yet again to go to China with her in November. She seems to be more persistent this time, too, to the point that it’s making me feel very annoyed and frustrated, like I’m not getting heard.

She tried to convince me by sweet-talking me, being nice to me, and promising she would pay for the entire trip. She do those things multiple times a day, as if I will suddenly change my answer from a no to a yes. Her plan is to spend a week in China before spending a week in Taiwan. Why she wants to go to China is so she can visit China one more time before her visa expired and she is trying to use up some of her PTO (paid-time-off) from work.

Two months ago, I had no legitimate reason of not wanting to go other than I don’t want to go and the fact that I can’t sit on an airplane for 10 minutes without my knees hurting.

Now, I actually have a good reason, which is work. We recently implemented a new software for accounts payable and I am the guinea pig on that implementation. I am the person who will need to learn to use this piece of software and with it being implemented only a few weeks ago, I’m still muddling through it each week. If I am to go on a two-week vacation now or next month, I have no real backup to complete this weekly task for me. This task also happens to be a critical because all of the company bills flow through this task. If no one is there to do this task, the bills won’t be able to get paid.

I told my mom this and she told me she didn’t understand. I just want to throw it out there to make sure I’m not crazy and this is a real concern. I feel like my mom not understanding how important this task is is her way of telling me she doesn’t think my position at the company is not important.

I told her that she can just go by herself and she shouldn’t need to drag anyone to go on trips with her. She said she’s afraid of the ticking time bomb in her head exploding and by “ticking time bomb”, she meant a benign micro-tumor in her brain, which the doctor told her she would be fine as long as she doesn’t do anything that’s emotional-triggering. She told me she’s also worried about having a stroke and no one would know what to do. To be honest, I think she watches too many Youtube videos about health and is scaring herself senseless.

At the same time, I think she’s having a FOMO (fear of missing out) moment because she will be retiring soon and fear of missing out on the travel and the fun. Either way, I am not traveling on a plane, at least not when the weather’s so cold. I also feel I’ve done enough traveling this year and need the winter to properly recharged. So why not cozy up to a book or continue a crochet project this winter instead of running around in any foreign land.