If you beat a dog, don’t be surprised if he runs away.

—letter to my uncle, March 2008

When I was a child my mom would always ask me if I’d let her live in a nursing home. She would do this as a form of reassurance, a way of addressing her insecurity about dying alone. To Chinese people, this is a fate worse than death. I understand that there may be medical conditions or other circumstances that make it impractical for a family member to live in your house, but that doesn’t change the fact that being put in a nursing home is like waiting to die.

At the time, I was too young to understand the gravity of such a question, so I would always reassure her, no. Maybe I even loved her at that point, and meant it. But I’ve since cut off all ties with her, and after the divorce, she has no one left. Her relatives lead their own lives, and she’s never had enough of a personality to make any friends. I’ve lived with her long enough to understand what a hollow, empty existence she has.

Now I’m old enough to know that she’ll die alone.

And that it’ll be exactly what she deserves.

While my mother always made it a point to stay involved in my life (to a fault), it was never because she loved me. She’s not someone who’s emotionally intelligent enough to understand what love is.

Which is why she tries to cling to me so desperately, even when I try so vehemently to avoid her. It’s the same way that some men or women only love the idea of marriage, instead of their spouses. They’re relationships based on all the wrong reasons.

Realizing this has made me wonder; did I ever actually love my girlfriends, or did I just love the idea of love?

Through all this, I’ve come to realize that I cut people out of my life as a defence mechanism.

When someone hurts me, I distance myself from them so they mean nothing to me.

Often it’s an easy choice — just one wrong word or action — but not all the time. Cutting off my mom was by no means a rash decision; it took years of consideration and plenty of chances before she finally went too far.

What surprises me the most is that even though I now know that I have this defence mechanism, I don’t see a problem with it.

I’ve been hurt by enough people, and I don’t want to be hurt any more.

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.

My mom called.

She started about some transfer forms, unfinished business in the wake of the divorce, but carefully segued into asking if I wanted to take a trip to the States with some other family.

This is how she tries to make amends. She doesn’t apologize or ask how I’m doing because she can’t. She can’t admit that she’s done any wrong, not even to herself. Her insecurity doesn’t allow her to show any vulnerability.

I keep my rage in check, but it’s a hard fire to fight. After what I’ve been through, after telling her never to talk to me again, she has the audacity to ask as if nothing has happened.

With a firm voice, I tell her no. No to the trip, no to her, and this causes her tone to grow angry. It’s funny to think that she may be angry at me, like a rapist being angry at his victim, but I know it’s not anger. It’s sadness, but she masks it with anger, the way she hides her guilt behind her excuses and explanations.

From what she says, I can tell she’s more worried about her image of being a bad parent to her friends, than to actually being a mother to me. This was the person who “raised” me. The person who was supposed to teach me to be proud of who I am. To not be superficial. To be humble. To own up to my mistakes. To take responsibility for my actions. It’s a scary thought.

I can read my mom like a book. Not because I’ve known her for so long, but because she’s still a child. I know exactly what she’s thinking, and at the same time, she shows a total lack of self-awareness. She still hasn’t learned the important lessons, the epiphanies one experiences through childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.

Talking to her is like talking to myself at an earlier stage in life.

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.

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On the 25th of September, at 11:04 am, my mom Googled my e-mail address, and found this blog.

She visits every day like clockwork; around 8:30 am when she gets into work, and sometimes during lunch around 12:30 pm. Even though I told her never to contact me again, she continues to check on me.

It’s something I’ve known for a while now.

The existence of this website was a secret I kept from my parents for as long as I could. I felt like I owed it to them to overlook my childhood memories because they stayed together for my sake, so I never wanted them to know this seemingly unreconciled side of me. When they told me they were getting divorced, I wrote an entry (that’s never been published) about how I stopped caring. It was their turn to start caring about me.

Of course, this was only true in theory.

To be honest, I was devastated. Bronwen likened it to her mom finding her diary under her bed, and I tend to agree with the analogy.

Chinese kids don’t talk to their parents about much. Even after being out of touch for a long time, parents will only ask whether they have enough money, whether they’re eating enough, and how their marks are in school, if applicable.

Some were surprised that my mom would continue reading my blog, believing the things I say would be too painful for her to read. It makes sense though. This is the only way she can stay close to me.

So I have to ignore the entries in my server logs that constantly remind me of her presence. I can’t let it affect the only place where I can write unrestricted. I just have to let go, and continue writing. Damn the consequence, as someone once said. There’s nothing else I can do. After all, this is a public journal. I have no right to complain about who comes here.

When you let go, you can write about anything.

The woman likes to clean.

I mean, I clean my house when I have guests, but every time she would visit, she could go over what I did and get things cleaner. Everything. Like hand-scrubbing the bathtub. Or washing the glass light-fixtures. Or maybe even to going through my freezer to throw out old frost-burned food and odd-looking, pungent-smelling dried herbs with red hairs in them, kept in an air-tight aluminum jar.

Herbs you could roll in cigarette fashion and smoke to alter your mood and change your perspective. About $70–$80 worth, kept in three different Ziploc bags, each with a different strain that I could choose when I felt that my tolerance to one was building up.

There was hydro from BC I bought off Matt. Some that John got for me, with a funny story behind how he acquired it. Some I don’t even remember who gave me.

I wonder what the expression was on her face if she smelled it, or how she would react if she ever found out that I did such things. I doubt she even knew what it was.

It was probably for the best. Even though I quit, I never threw it out.

I don’t think I could bring myself to do it.

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.

You didn’t know it, but for years I’ve come close to burning the bridge with you. It was a heavy step to take, because in doing so, I knew that I would never be able to go back on such a drastic decision.

I appreciate all the financial support you’ve provided. It’s been more than I can ask for. Unfortunately, what I wanted and needed the most was emotional support.

I’ve always played the role of the submissive son. Your boy who’s always done what you wanted and agreed with what you said. When we exchanged tears on the phone in August, I let you know how poorly I was treated growing up. I’ve always put up with it, but the way you acted last week was the straw that broke the camels back. I keep giving you a chance, over and over. Seeing you over those few days was the last one. Even if you say now that you can change, the risk isn’t worth it. The potential misery, frustration, and anguish you may cause me aren’t worth it.

Normally, I would be sensitive about the timing — the fresh divorce, the transition — but I don’t care anymore. I’ve put my feelings aside my whole life. You pushed me too far, and now I have to consider myself.

Don’t contact me again. Not even if someone dies. Any calls, messages, e-mails will be ignored. This is not an easy or a brash decision for me, a decision I’ve made after cooling off and calming down, but from my point of view it’s for the best.

From now on, I don’t have a mother.

And you don’t have a son.

Under the guise of some trouble with her iPod, the old second generation clunker that I gave her last Christmas, my mother calls me on Saturday, close to midnight.

I can hear the congestion in her nose. She’s been crying. It gets lonely when you’re alone in the house on a Saturday night, the same house you’ve inhabited for the last 15 years of your life with your façade of a family, and the façade is torn down.

Our last phone-call didn’t end well. She wanted to know why we weren’t as close as other sons with their mothers.

“How can we be close”, I told her, “You go crazy every time I tell you something important. You’re stifling. Overprotective. Growing up, it made my life a nightmare.” For the first time in my life, I revealed a glimpse of how she had wronged me, not even bringing up the memories of mental abuse I keep buried in my chest for times like this, like an ember ready to be stoked into a fire.

“It’s because you’re my only son, and the only thing I have left now.” Saying these words, sparking a sudden realization, makes her sob more. She tells me that she wants to start over. It’s never too late. She wants to be stronger so she can survive this divorce, and close to me so she’s isn’t left without an emotional bond.

Unfortunately, forgiveness isn’t something that’s in my power. I have no pity for her. Knowing how vulnerable, weak, and depressed she is just a reminder of my own childhood, and only time has a chance at edulcorating the bitter taste in my mouth.

So she calls me on Saturday, pretending to need some help with her iPod, to see if I’ve forgiven her yet. If I ignore her, I become as terrible a person as she was. I only wish I could believe that she didn’t deserve it.

But I can’t.

I caught my father after a shower. How formal the word, father. Like addressing a character in some Elizabethan play. His hair was mussed, wild, even thinner than before. He’s been going gray since he was 15, and every couple of months he colours it black again. It works for him, taking at least ten years off his age. People don’t really know how old he is until he tells them that I’m in my twenties.

The bacon they serve me for breakfast is dry, dull, devoid of soft fat, or grease that pools in the waves of each strip. A result of his heart condition. No more cheese, red meat only once a week.

Even my mothers’ delicate hands have deeply withered, though they remain soft from her attentive care, which include varying sorts of designer hand creams and specialized lotions that follow her everywhere. My parents have long stopped wearing their weddings bands, but she wears one of my grandmothers rings, a beautiful old-fashioned cut on a clamp mount, left to her in the will. I remember my grandmother pinching my cheeks, holding my hand, her skin loose but, like mom, supple as a softened chamois.

I see this ring on my mother, and realize that she’s getting older too.