March 20, 2009

A Different Kind of Understanding

2

The doc­tor told us she has another 5–6 months. Her colon is so enlarged from the tumor that it’s thicker than her spine, and the pro­ce­dure was just a tem­po­rary solu­tion to pre­vent fur­ther blockages.

How strange it is to “know” how much time there is left. I guess that’s why they call it a dead­line. I had already assumed that this would going to be the last time I could see her, but that won’t make it any eas­ier when I have to leave.

I’m grate­ful to the peo­ple who have been send­ing me their regards. It’s a nice com­fort. One of the best pieces of advice came from Charlotte, who told me to “not leave any­thing at all unsaid to her…leave no ques­tions unan­swered, and to not with­hold any affec­tion you feel for her”.

I had come to Hong Kong with the inten­tion of telling my grandma how impor­tant she was to me. Finding the right words in Chinese to express exactly what I wanted to say.

But try­ing to speak with her has made me real­ize that she doesn’t care about any of that. She’s a very prac­ti­cal woman, almost to the point of tact­less­ness. For almost her entire life, mar­ried at 14 and as a sin­gle par­ent of seven kids, she’s had no time for words or feelings.

I’m here, and that’s how she under­stands how I feel.

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July 21, 2004

Earless Listener

4

Beth. Mysterions. Scratches, beats, drum rolls.

It’s funny. Sometimes I read con­fes­sions on group hug and some­one will be going on about how they have this prob­lem, but they can’t tell any­one because no one would under­stand. Almost every time, no mat­ter what it is, my first reac­tion is to roll my eyes and think to myself, “Trust me, you prob­a­bly know some­one who understands”.

And then I real­ize that this isn’t true, because it isn’t true for me. There are quite a few things that I feel like I can’t tell my friends. Not because I’d be afraid of los­ing them over it, but because none of them have had the same expe­ri­ences as me, thus ren­der­ing unable to help.

John is usu­ally the first per­son I’ll tell my prob­lems to because I’m most com­fort­able with him. I’ve known him for more than half my life, and he’s as fal­li­ble as me. I also have a lot more shit on him than he does on me (how do I keep John loyal…blackmail, hah). But gen­er­ally I don’t want to tell him about my prob­lems because he doesn’t think like me at all.

Pat is the per­son I’d most want to tell things to, sim­ply because he has too much good in his heart and knows me well enough that I couldn’t pos­si­bly say or do any­thing to make him angry. Yet he’s the last per­son I end up going to for help or advice, just because he’s so busy. Sometimes I’ll tell Aaron and Trolley, but I don’t linger on things too long for fear of bor­ing them.

I mean, what’s the point of telling some­one who doesn’t think the same way or hasn’t been in the same sit­u­a­tion? It’s not like they don’t care, they just actu­ally don’t under­stand, so what could they pos­si­bly do to help (aside from direct involve­ment if the option is there, but if the option is there it wouldn’t be a prob­lem). Sometimes, the most that a friend can do is lend an ear.

Sometimes it’s enough. Otherwise, there’s this.

My own, per­sonal group hug.

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March 14, 2004

The Fault of Misunderstanding

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There’s a rid­dle that goes:

Two chim­ney sweep­ers are work­ing in a chim­ney when one loses his foot­ing and causes both to fall into the fire­place. One ends up with a black, sooty face, while the other is lucky and stays clean. Both look at each other in aston­ish­ment after the sur­pris­ing fall. The one with the clean face goes to the bath­room to wash his face, while the other con­tin­ues work­ing with his dark­ened com­plex­ion. Logically explain the actions of the two sweepers.

The answer is sim­ple. The one with the dirty face sees the one with the clean face, and assumes that his face is clean as well. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face, assumes the oppo­site, and washes up.

And even though I know the answer to the rid­dle, some­times I for­get that such con­fu­sion exists. For exam­ple, if I had a car, I’d be giv­ing peo­ple rides to Tremblent. And since I’d be going there myself, I wouldn’t ask peo­ple for gas money. Other peo­ple, how­ever, see the car ride as part of the cost of going there, and will plan on split­ting the cost of gas when orga­niz­ing the trip. Both ideals are fine, but I pre­fer to not ask peo­ple for money if I’m not going out of my way to do something.

And, being the igno­rant idiot that I am, I will some­times for­get that oth­ers are not like me, that oth­ers assume that gas money will be split. Perhaps it can be said that I’m as much at fault as oth­ers who assume the oppo­site, but that doesn’t really mat­ter to me. The best solu­tion, in such cases, is that an under­stand­ing be reached when things are planned.

An exam­ple like this, which has been taken from per­sonal expe­ri­ence, can be related so many other things in life. That just means that I need to work harder at being con­sid­er­ate of how oth­ers think.

Because some would rather be angry than understanding.

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March 8, 2004

Wavelength

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It’s so hard to wit­ness some­one being made fun of, sim­ply because they’re mis­un­der­stood. I get flus­tered and bite my lip, because try­ing to defend them never does a thing. I also get either angry or sad, depend­ing on whether or not I know the per­son who’s doing the mock­ing. In my expe­ri­ence, some­one who’s so quick to come to a con­clu­sion will refuse to see things another way. They have enough pre­con­ceived notions to keep them­selves igno­rant and secure.

Perhaps I’m like this because I can relate to what it’s like to be mis­un­der­stood. As an exper­i­ment in one of my English classes, I wrote an extremely graphic story about a necrophil­iac doc­tor who ends up get­ting raped up the ass, and pre­sented it. I wanted to show that the inten­tions of an artist are irrel­e­vant if he or she is mis­un­der­stood, because oth­ers will con­tinue to care­lessly judge them. The more oddly my class­mates stared at me while I was pre­sent­ing, with­out try­ing to grasp what I was try­ing to do, the more I felt like my point was proved.

The thing is, some­one is usu­ally mis­un­der­stood because they don’t explain them­selves well. A per­son can be extremely provoca­tive, con­tro­ver­sial, or com­plex, but as long as oth­ers see what they’re try­ing to get across then every­thing is fine. Of course, it’s much eas­ier said than done, and some­one is most often mis­un­der­stood because their ideas are harder to grasp. In addi­tion to this, I find that the eccen­tric­ity related to a per­son with such ideas clouds their per­cep­tions as to what they believe oth­ers are capa­ble of comprehending.

Sometimes, I wish the world could see what I see.

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February 11, 2004

Patchwork Mindset: Part 1

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I haven’t seen Pat in more than two months. We’re try­ing to sched­ule some­thing for March, and by that time it’ll be an entire quar­ter year since we’ve hung out. I’ve come a long way since I last saw him, in terms of mind­set, and he’s prob­a­bly the only one who totally under­stands how gravely impor­tant that is to me. It’s too bad that my other close friends don’t com­pletely under­stand me, although it’s no fault of their own and I don’t hold it against them.

It takes pain to under­stand pain, and Pat is the one who’s had the most sim­i­lar expe­ri­ences. If there was one per­son in this world who has me fig­ured out, it’s him. It used to feel as though he would have to come to my level to talk to me, to under­stand what I was going through, to give me guid­ance and support.

Now it feels as if I’ve come to his level, and I under­stand his atti­tude, moti­va­tions, and world­view much bet­ter as a result of this. He admit­ted that he always won­dered when I’d get there, and he’s curi­ous if he’ll notice a change the next time he sees me.

I see all the influ­ences that change me as adding more to my mind, another piece to the quilt.

Keeping every piece becomes as impor­tant as gain­ing more.

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April 28, 2003

Go

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It’s dif­fi­cult for me to imag­ine being done school, that I can start liv­ing as a free per­son. I’ve been in school for so long that I begin to expect another term in the near future. Yet I’m done (as long as I didn’t fail any­thing) and I have a great deal of options. But what would I really want to do with my life? A uni­ver­sity diploma will only help me get a tiny part of what I want to achieve.

Odd that I live so day-to-day, yet have a few goals planned for decades in advance. Even if I haven’t achieved a sin­gle goal by the time I die, I’ll feel decently sat­is­fied. I enjoy being able to appre­ci­ate every­thing I do each day. A great deal of think­ing needs to be done before I keep going. And while the future seems uncer­tain, while the world seems to be turned upside down, I feel comforted.

It’s under­stand­ing and real­iza­tion that bind my world together, that bring mean­ing to any­thing I do.

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April 6, 2003

I Need To Tell You

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I won­der if I come off as a per­son with emo­tional bag­gage. One of the (very few) things that I pride myself in is my “self-awareness”, the abil­ity to see myself objec­tively, but this is a char­ac­ter­is­tic that I am unable to deter­mine within myself. Has my past made me a per­son of fright­en­ing, unper­son­able dis­po­si­tion? Do peo­ple think of me as some­one with deep rooted emo­tional issues?

I won­der if my his­tory even mat­ters to oth­ers. I real­ize that it’s when I let my his­tory inter­fere with or affect my rela­tion­ships that it becomes a prob­lem. I’m afraid, how­ever, that I let things become affected more than I’d like, more than I understand.

The past is some­thing that I rec­og­nize as being sig­nif­i­cant, and I try to keep it only as that. It is some­thing that I learn from, some­thing which can affect me and my deci­sions today, but not some­thing that I should presently be deal­ing with.

So, is it?

Well, I’m not com­pletely sure. On a night like tonight, when the mid­night sky burns bright enough to illu­mi­nate my room, I can’t help but feel unheard, unheard in some­thing I wish to express. What becomes this need to be understood?

It’s a voice I wish to have, to bring me clo­sure, to let me be free.

It has taken me three hours to write this final thought, along with the resur­fac­ing of many dis­tract­ing mem­o­ries. Things still feel unre­solved, of course, but I have suf­fi­ciently quelled my mood until there is a more appro­pri­ate time to express myself.

When I see you again, you will under­stand what I’ve become, and what you’ve done to make me this way.

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