More than a crazy week, I managed to survive a crazy fortnight. Something went wrong almost every day, from getting my hair highlighted, to almost getting killed in a near-miss car accident, to finding out that my company was bought out. On top of this, I kept losing sleep, which only exponentiated the stress. Now is the process of picking myself up and dusting myself off.
I still feel over-stimulated, so I’ve been hermitizing. Staying away from people for a while. I’m limiting myself to one social interaction or extra-curricular activity per week. It would actually be nothing if I had the option, but I keep getting pulled into things because of their annual exclusivity, such as Thanksgiving dinner at Louise’s.
I’ve cut off the woman who gave birth to me. There’s a tremendous feeling of relief, after having done it. I’m grateful for all the support that people are showing me, as well as the fact that none of them have given me advice as if they know more about the situation or have more wisdom than I do.
I hold Pat’s opinion in highest regard because he’s the only one who understands from both a cultural and first-hand point-of-view. He was also the only one who told me, “Good for you”. This, from one of the most forgiving, caring people that I know, confirmed to me that I made the right decision.
John offered a unique perspective too, since losing his mother at a tender age. “You only get one”, he said, although he never chided or judged me about it, perhaps because of the number of times I’ve called him up in tears because of her.
Of the last five times I’ve tried to play table tennis, things didn’t work out once. It certainly made the last two weeks a lot more difficult to handle.
Table tennis is the only thing that helps me sleep well, not to mention the fact exercise releases endorphines that fight the exact depression I was going through. I’m taking it as a sign that I’m not meant to play at the moment, so I’m giving it up until next year.
In the meantime, I’ve taken up Tai Chi. Through the last while, I went back to the Tao Te Ching looking for answers, and it renewed my interest in Tai Chi, which I see as a physical manifestation of the theory. I was also able to clarify a few of the concepts with my uncles while they were here, so I’m reading things over with a fresh perspective.
Hooray for the end of that fortnight then. Get rid of all that dust and good luck with the new endeavours/resolutions :)
Thanks Bean, it certainly felt like it was longer than a fortnight!
You once asked me about why the blood tie to brothers is special. It’s because there’s always “The failure” and “The favored”. The favored will feel bad for the failure and the failure will envy the favored. Thus sharing the load of parental expectations. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have all that attention focused. Why the mother? not the father?
That’s interesting. Last week, someone told me that one mistake my parents made was that they never had more than one kid. As a mother of three herself, she said she had hopes for her eldest child to do a specific thing, and when the eldest child wasn’t interested, she simply hoped that the next child would do it. And when the youngest child wasn’t interested, she would simply find another hope. Having more than one child
And my dad hasn’t actively done anything to hurt me. My mom actively hurts me, whereas my dad passively hurts me with indifference. It’s actually more like he’s already cut me off, since he’s only called me once since the divorce, and it was a few months ago. If he were more like a father, I would probably feel bad about this.
Yes, we all need endorphines. And I like the picture of sushi. Made me hungry :-)