Posts tagged with "mother"

The Diary Under The Bed

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.

The dis­cov­ery must have opened a can of worms. This is where I share my prob­lems. My inse­cu­ri­ties. My sex­u­al expe­ri­ences. My past drug use. The bit­ter mem­o­ries of child­hood. On here, I’m no longer the dis­tant son they’ve known for 25 years. I’m open. Naked. Exposed.

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.

Dusting Myself Off Like I Just Stole Third

Thumbnail: Green tea ice cream
Thumbnail: Bronwen with Dolly
Thumbnail: Pumpkins for sale
Thumbnail: Bandit
Thumbnail: Quebec view
Thumbnail: Speciality sushi
Thumbnail: Autumn leaf
Thumbnail: Crab claws
Thumbnail: Sarah
Thumbnail: War memorial
Thumbnail: Spicy pork soup
Thumbnail: Olaf

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. ____ 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.

Letter To My Mother

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.

You give me noth­ing but pain and mon­ey, and the mon­ey does­n’t mean a thing.

From now on, I don’t have a moth­er.

And you don’t have a son.

The Maternal Grudge

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.

I can only say that I’ll have to for­give her first. Up to then, she did­n’t even know that there was any­thing to for­give.

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.

Growing Pains

Thumbnail: Dry bacon

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.

How scary it was to see him like this, like some crazy old fool with all his hair point­ing out­ward and uncom­posed, but still know­ing that he was still my sta­ble, strong, cold father. The thought that he may one day go senile, lose the viril­i­ty that he seems so des­per­ate to cling to, filled me with pity.

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.

Thumbnail: Wrinkled hand

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.