I found this picture at my uncle’s house. It is:
How weird is it that I didn’t even recognize myself. And look at those glasses! They were my first pair, which probably means I was around 14 or 15. Apparently, I was still wearing my calculator watch at that age.
Sometimes, I wonder what my life would be like if I didn’t have so much baggage. How my relationships would be different. Which ones would have worked, and which ones wouldn’t have changed at all.
Love, in all it’s multi-faceted wonder, levels, and types, is never a sure thing for me. I may feel it, but feel that it’s fleeting and conditional at the same time. Other people have the luxury of taking love for granted. They assume they’re loved. How comforting it must be. For me, it’s always been a struggle for stability. “We won’t love you if you don’t do well on this test. We won’t love you if you don’t practice piano. We won’t love you if you don’t finish your dinner. No one’s going to love you if you always stay this skinny.”
It feels like I haven’t survived my childhood yet. And I arrive at this fact so many times when trying to figure out the source of my issues that it’s starting to sound like an excuse. Therapy has helped identify my issues, but it’s still taking work on my part to resolve them, along with patience on the parts of others. I’m beginning to question why people would accept and love me. I guess it’s worth it to some, but things would be so much easier if they didn’t have to deal with my insecurities.
When I was young, the only affection my parents ever showed for each other was occasionally (maybe five times ever) holding hands in the car. They never kissed, never hugged, never said “I love you”. Aside from sitting down to eat dinner, their lives were completely separate. They wouldn’t even sleep in the same room.
Now that I have a car, holding hands while driving has come to define a relationship for me. I leave my right hand on the shifter, tapping it to the beat of my music, but I always have this urge to hold someone’s hand, as if it’s some strange ideal I’ve never been able to experience.
People wonder how it got so far. They ask me if something happened and I tell them, “Yeah…my childhood”.
It hurts, doesn’t it? Are you in a lot of pain? Cause I was in a lot of pain.
I’m still trying to fix your damage. Still trying to cover up the scars.
You deserve this. You did this to yourself.
And I fucking hope it hurts.
I often explain to people that Karaoke to the Chinese is like drinking to the British. We don’t pour pints at our parties, we sing. It’s part of the culture. The Chinese-Canadian dream is a Toyota in every driveway and a Karaoke machine in every house.
My dad was no exception. Like all his hobbies, he took Karaoke seriously. He had singing lessons from a famous teacher. Sometimes, he would record himself and listen to the tapes to analyze his singing when driving me to school. We would never talk on those hour-long rides, I would only hear him singing, sometimes along with his recorded voice, sometimes practicing the parts that he didn’t have quite right.
When I was young, about seven, I would sing one of the English songs from his collection. I couldn’t tell you why. Karaoke didn’t particularly interest me. Maybe it was a way for me to be a part of his life. He had nothing to do with me otherwise.
This used to be my favourite season.
I don’t even know why. Christmas was always about tedious gatherings. Each parental group of friends and family — consisting only of Chinese people — would take turns hosting parties. As one of the “kids”, I was thrust in a room with the other sons and daughters. People I only saw once a year, with whom I had nothing in common. Some years, I’d go to six different houses in two weeks.
My parents would always host New Year’s. Some time ago, with the money I earned from my first job, I bought them a classy fondue set and fondue book for them to use as hosts. They never opened the box, or even cracked the spine of the book. It broke my heart.
Monetary certificates. Sweaters. Cheap stationary. Nothing personalized. Nothing from the heart. Nothing I ever needed or wanted. It was merely a display of how little people knew or cared about me. It would have meant more if they gave the money to charity.
The one reprieve during the holidays was being able to see Darren, sneaking out in the middle of a party to get stoned with him, or hanging out with John.
Then why did the holidays mean so much to me?
Maybe it was the atmosphere. The snow. The memories of Christmas in Hong Kong. The fact that people who had nothing in common would put up Christmas lights. Something that everyone believed in.
Even though I’ve received some beautiful, thoughtful gifts for once, even though I don’t really celebrate Christmas, I’m down. It’s too warm for the snow to stay. I didn’t buy presents for anyone. I’m working the short week between Christmas weekend and New Year’s weekend because I can’t afford any time off.
I suppose the holidays are what you make of them.
There have been many generous people — Louise, John, Aaron, Joel, Bronwen, Pat — who opened their houses to me today, but it’s not the same.
To feel like I was part of something, part of a family, as dysfunctional as it was. Because of the divorce, there’s no home to go to for the first time in my life.
Christmas is dead this year, but it’s only a reflection of how dead I feel inside.
Over ten years ago, I lived at my aunt’s house for about four months in the summer. Much of my maternal family was visiting from Hong Kong, so everyone stayed there as a central location.
One day my parents had a blow-out. It was trivial, as always. As a result, from my mom’s side of the story, he went out with another woman that night. From his side, my mom tried to kill him with a steak knife. It cut his finger to the bone when he was defending himself. The next day, with swollen eyes and a weak voice, my mom showed me the yellow bruises down her arm. They had to be photographed by the police as evidence before they healed. Two subpoena’s later and they were better than new, for the next few months at least until the next fight.
This is the last memory I have of my aunt’s house. I haven’t been back since. Not until this weekend.
Now everyone from my maternal side is here, all my mom’s siblings and their respective families. It started out as an act of commiseration, to help her out during the divorce. Aunt, uncle, and son, aunt, uncle, and son, aunt and uncle. And then there’s me, with my mom. Without father. The only broken family.
At first I think it’s just a coincidence. My aunt and uncle have the same vacuum cleaner that we had, the same piano, the same brown cowhide corner sofa. And then it clicks. Since the divorce, my mom sold the house after buying out my father of the contents. Everything is stored here until she moves into her new house, from the basement to the family room, from the kitchen to the bathroom.
I need to get out of here.
I need to get the fuck out of here.
A bowl of egg-noodles, with barbecue pork, shiitake mushrooms, shrimp, carrots, bok choi, and green onions in a chicken broth, is considered comfort food for most Chinese people. They say that comfort food soothes the mind by acting like an opiate, hitting the receptors in our central nervous system. We go to it in times of stress, and in addition to keeping us full, it keeps us pacified.
As Pat and Jen cut, and wash, and cook, they never nibble. Everything that’s prepared goes into the pot. Not too long, or the vegetables will lose their firmness. With chopsticks and a spoon, they serve the noodle soup in large bowls. One eats from the spoon, which is used to scoop the broth, while the chopsticks are simply used to put the desired ingredients on the former utensil.
I don’t have meals like this anymore. Chinese food is a complicated affair. It takes a motley set of ingredients, most of which is only available on a single street in this city, so I’m grateful for a real home-cooked meal.
Everything about it brings me back to a time when I was a child, living with my parents, living off Chinese food every day. The contrasting colours of the pork against the noodles. The full aroma. The savoury taste of broth. Even the dulcet slurp of noodles.
If only my childhood was worth remembering.
With presents that come folded to perfection, boxed in white wrapping paper, and special washing instructions. This is the safest gift for someone my age, unlike the guessing game that music, toys, or games has become.
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Not that I’m complaining. If it’s one thing my parents have been able to give me, it’s financial freedom. Never having to worry about how I’m going to pay for rent, or board, or education. It’s not easy for Chinese parents to show affection, an influence of the culture they grew up in, so they buy me things instead.
The dog they can love and take care of and want around, but not have to actually talk to or spend time with.
These are my treats.
This was my elementary school. The Catholic institution I attended during the first few years of moving here. Where I used to offer best-friend status for a mouthful of Big League Chew. Old, familiar four-square courts are still painted on, unmoved. The T-ball poles are rusted out and missing their tethers. Countless feet jumping, running, skipping during recess have caused the pavement to warp and crack. Even the old portables are anything but, their familiar beige tones still inhabiting the back of the school, built out of concrete and plastic foam when the town was budding, and the classrooms couldn’t handle all the students. Walking up the wooden stairs, I bet they even have the same groaning creaks.
I was listening to Manson’s second album, Antichrist Superstar, for the first time after a several year hiatus on the bus to work this morning. I was reminded of how much I went through with this album, for most of high-school and nearly two entire relationships. How comforting this music was for me, on the journey home from my exhausting classes and elitist classmates. It’s the only good album Manson ever put out, and also happens to be the only album that Trent Reznor produced for him. I’m willing to bet that it isn’t simple coincidence.
I never really get a chance to listen to these songs; even though I consider the music to be metal, the songs are too dark and moody to fit into my metal playlist. It’s the same thing with Tool. Aside from Opiate, which was just an EP anyway,Tool’s music has never fit into any specific genre to me. They have a metal feel and progressive rock elements, but are never enough of one or the either to fit into any of my playlists.
I remember once when I was younger, say about nine or ten, my parents took me for a car ride. I had no idea where we were going, because I never questioned them whenever they told me to get in the car. I’ve always been a victim of humming engines, and even today I find it hard to stay awake while riding in a car. I fell asleep and eventually woke up in a parked car with my seatbelt still on, uncertain of how much time had passed or where my parents had gone. The surroundings were unfamiliar, the parking lot, half-full, even more so. I sat there, expecting my parents to come back any second.
Not knowing how much more time went by, I started to question whether or not they had purposely left me there, some decade-late, do-it-yourself, abortion. “No”, I thought, “They wouldn’t just leave the car, it’s too much money”. When I couldn’t fight against my suspicion any longer, couldn’t convince myself that they wouldn’t just leave me in this lot like a baby on a doorstep, I started to cry. I didn’t know what to do. I gathered up the courage to leave the saftey of the car, and locked the door, knowing that in doing so I wouldn’t be able to get back in, but too scared of getting in trouble if my parents were ever to find out.
Wandering around the adjacent plaza, my face a complete sobbing mess, I looked for them through the store windows. Excuses, apologies, promises to be a good kid kept racing through my mind as I wondered from store to store, being careful not to let my eyes off the car. Eventually, I found them in a light fixture store, chatting with a sales clerk about some wood grain ceiling fan. I went in, approached them, and all I could say was, “Where did you go?”. They told me, matter-of-factly, that they went shopping and that I should have stayed asleep in the car. After finishing their conversation with the clerk, they left with me, and we all went home. I was shaken, but happy that I wasn’t discarded because of poor marks of bad piano form.
And even though I wish that the entire incident didn’t happen in the first place, a part of me wonders what it would be like if I had never found them. Perhaps a resolution.
An end to the stipulations of a conditional life.
