Category Archives: therapy in session

Hello Sweetie. I need to get a grip on reality.

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Seeing how I have been on a midlife crisis overdrive…

Yes, I think I may as well come out and admit it to myself. I have been going through some sort of personal crisis ever since I started this blog in 2008. Some sort of late-onset-puberty/rebellious stage sans hyper-libido. *sigh*

For someone who’s 120% sincere and honest when she vomited a post titled With all due respect, I am fucking scared of getting old, and who’s scared out of her wits of turning into some sort of predator, really, the last thing you needed to show her was a show dedicated entirely to time travel and alternate reality, starring a nerdy yet sexy 29-year-old actor and a 49-year-old actress in one of the most romantic star-crossed-lover (literally in so many ways) storyline. [Oh god, don’t you just LOVE the British? This anti-Hollywood-rule pairing would never, ever, have happened in the U.S…]

What if… BEEEPPPP. Not allowed.

*red flashing light* Compartmentalize. Compartmentalize. *red flashing light* *Steel door coming down*

Brain. Shutting down. Nope. We never ever want to go there. Just stop it right now.

Someone that I don’t know particularly well cornered me in the office one day and asked me a very blunt question about my personal life. I laughed. I laugh a lot, I’ve noticed. I explained to her how I am an expert in compartmentalizing my thoughts and emotions. Because that’s how people survive and function in reality, no?

This. Is not a cry for help. I just need to get over it. It’s full moon after all.

It’s amazing how I’ve managed to not mention the thing I have been obsessed with for the past month even once. Moving along…

I have my own time warp right here: Found this mix tape made by a classmate of mine when we were in college. He made several mix tapes for a girl that he was pining for. [Incidentally, like a plague, I now recall at least four other guys were smitten with her at the same time in our senior year. Still can’t figure out why. We’ve all known each other all these years, and all of a sudden, finger snap, they all fell in love with her…] I have no idea whether he’s given her the tapes, but the rest of us swooned over the mix tapes and like the stereotypical “great guy who never gets the girl”, he made a copy for all of us. I wonder what happened to him. I hope he’s well. Whoever he’s with, I hope she’s not having what I’m having…

Compartmentalization. Complete.

 

 

 

Just say NO to Mother’s Day

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Yes, I am the Grinch, Mother’s Day version. I wrote a whiny, bitchy, grouchy post on/near Mother’s Day every year. I thought about restraining myself this year because as we all know, bitterness is extremely unattractive. The problem with bitterness is that it easily borders on envy, and as we also know, envy is one of the seven deadly sins. (That being said, I still call bullshit on the killer’s motive in Seven…)

Unlike the optional Father’s Day that celebrates the underprivileged, undercelebrated fathers of the world, Mother’s Day is an internationally recognized holiday. My memory of Mother’s Day was forever ruined when I was a kid back in Taipei. In grade school, for Mother’s Day every year, a period would be scheduled for making carnations out of tissue papers and wires. Sounds fun, right? Now consider this: There is a suggested “rule” for the use of carnation: wear a red carnation if your mother is still alive; wear a white one if your mother has passed away. And imagine this: someone in your classroom had just lost his mother… Picture this: on every desk was laid out pieces of red tissue papers, except one.

I cannot recall whether the boy cried or not. But whenever I think of Mother’s Day from that day on, I see the white tissue papers on his desk.

And then I want to go back in time and punch those stupid teachers.

 

As I said, I was going to shut up about Mother’s Day and join in the festivities at least online. (IRL, I am working, and nothing has been planned to mark today any different from any other Sunday. In fact, I completely forgot about it for myself, and therefore I forgot to get anything for my MIL and my own mother. Yes, I can be a heartless bitch. I am very sorry, Mom. I really really am… One more thing, if I may ask, why is it MY job to remember Mother’s Day for MIL and Father’s Day for FIL? I love them dearly but still.)  That is, until I saw this Forbes article about the founder of Mother’s Day, Anna Marie Jarvis. I knew that Jarvis campaigned to have a day established to commemorate mothers all over the world per her own mother’s wish. She asked people to wear carnations on this day in memory of her mother because carnations were her favorite. What surprises me, and should everybody else, is that Jarvis was outraged by the gross commercialization of Mother’s Day soon afterwards. “Jarvis detested the commercialism of what the day had become. With her sister Ellsinore, they spent their family inheritance fighting the day’s designation.” She dedicated the rest of her life to campaign against Mother’s Day, or probably more accurately, the gross commercialization of Mother’s Day.

A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment.

So there you have it.

Jarvis would have been an awesome blogger, imo.

Did I ever mention that I have a pathological need to be liked? Ok, it may not be obvious considering how paradoxically I cannot help being a sarcastic bitch. Anyway, that need extends to my children as well. I don’t doubt that they love me, but LIKE is something else. You need to earn it. (Except on Facebook, I guess.)  My decidedly unsentimental sentiment towards Mother’s Day aside, every year on this day, instead of expecting some obligatory adoration from my family, I become even more paranoid about how I have been performing as a mother. The self doubt becomes overwhelming as the day progresses and I just want it to end so we can all get back to our regularly scheduled programs. I was rescued from myself when Mr. Monk handed me a hand-made card with a twenty dollar bill inside. I burst into tears as I read the words. Maybe Mother’s Day does not suck that much after all.

 

 

p.s. But wait. What does he mean by “inside every dark world”? Is he saying that his world is dark? That he is unhappy? He’s not even 10 years old yet. What have I done to my child??!! Oh lord… The saga of my guilt trip continues…

With all due respect, I am fucking scared of getting old

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I have been wanting to write about this fear of mine, irrational or not, for a long time but refrained because I did not want to offend anybody. But I can’t ignore it any longer. It depresses the shit out of me on bad days. I am just going to come right out and say it:

With all due respect, I think the saying “Life begins at 40” is a crock of bullshit. It’s like saying the lottery winners are unhappy because now they have the trouble that comes with extreme wealth. Are we not supposed to be admitting to ourselves and the world that aging is scary and depressing? I don’t feel “Rah Rah Yeah Look at me I am a middle-aged woman” at all. I feel like shit, and now I also feel guilty for feeling like shit.

I am watching this aging thing in horror the way I watch a glass vase fall. In s-l-o-w m-o-t-i-o-n. I freeze. Eyes wide open. Wishing I could somehow turn back time to before the moment when the vase was knocked over. There is nothing I can do but to watch the vase hit the ground and break into pieces.

 

The trailers for “Mirror Mirror” and “Snow White and the Huntsman” reminded me how peculiar it is that in many of these tales, fear of aging drives people to the extremes in order to forestall the inevitable. And inevitable it is. On more and more occasions men would greet me with “Young lady!”, sometimes with a wink even because they knew they’re doing me a favor. It’s a secret handshake that firmly positions me in the category “women who have past their prime”. I hate this because, yes, it does make my steps lighter and lift my spirit. How pathetic it is that I now live for evidences of the residue of my youth?

 

Maybe I’d feel better about this whole aging thing if I felt I’d lived a life well-lived. For myself. As myself.

I spent 23 years of my life in school. The kids came. I had lived in a fog ever since. All of a sudden the fog cleared because the kids are old enough to spare me some free time, I opened my eyes and screamed when I looked at myself in the mirror.

What the fuck happened?

I feel cheated. I was put in cryogenic sleep but I did not wake up like Captain America. I demand a do-over! All the unfulfilled promises from my youth make me want to lie on my back and throw a big, giant tantrum.

“But I don’t wanna. NO! You can’t make me! It’s not fair!”

Waving my arms frantically to bat away the minutes. Covering my ears singing “LalalalalaIcan’thearyou” and shielding my eyes from the glaring tick-tock of time.

If I cry hard enough, scream loud enough, someone will relent and let me have my way right?

 

I noticed a varicose vein on my face today. I’m shell-shocked I guess. Watching Vivien Leigh who was 43 in “My Week with Marilyn” crumble under the frightening prospect of the march of time did not help either.

I hope you could see this as an acceptable excuse for my irrational outburst.

Just don’t call me “Young lady”.

And definitely don’t say “When I grow up, I want to be like you.”

 

ETA: Came across this cartoon… Yup.

Conversation with my mother, or, why I dread it

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The phone rang. At this hour I knew it has got to be from my mother.

What does she want this time? Is always my first thought. Then I feel guilty about it. More often than not, however, I get to stop feeling guilty because she is calling to add to my shopping list called “Shit to bring home to my families because that’s what you do when you are a Chinese living abroad and you welcome all ways to help assuage your guilt”.

Mom: What are you doing?

Me: Nothing. Putting the kids to bed.

Mom: I am calling to confirm the date and time when you arrive at the airport. Is it 10 pm on December 27?

Me: Yes.

Mom: Ok. … … … What are you doing?

Me: Yelling at the kids to take a bath.

Mom: Why are you always doing that when I call?

Me: Because you always call around this time?

Mom: Oh. Ha ha. Have you eaten yet?

Me: No.

Mom: What time is it now? How come you have not eaten yet? [Then why did you ask me in the first place?!] What are you going to eat?

Me: I don’t know. I am thinking of Ramen noodles.

Mom: What kind? Is it the Korean spicy kind?

This went on for a while. Then my mom repeated the same story she’d told me twice already.

Mom: So and so’s daughter is married to a foreigner too. Her grandson is so cute. Mixed kid, you know. And oh, he’s so adorable when he speaks Chinese. Oh yes, her daughter teaches the boy Chinese at home.

Me: … … …

Mom: Oh, yes, he speaks perfect Chinese.

Me: … … …

Mom: And they are back in Taiwan now.

Me: … … …

Mom: She also just went on a tour around the world [ok, probably not around the world…] with her daughter and her son-in-law. Oh. They took her everywhere.

Me: … … …

Mom: And her daughter is back in Taiwan now with her grandson.

Me: … … …

Mom: Hello? Are you still there? Why aren’t you saying anything?

Me [sighing silently]: So let me guess. Her daughter does not work. [Maybe the bitterness in my voice came through]

Mom [relenting]: Oh right. You have a job. My daughter is so smart and capable. [This was said without sarcasm. My mother does not do sarcasm. I don’t think she knows how.]

Me [wanting to die]: Ok. So why are you telling me about your friend who I do not know. You have told me this a few times.

Mom: Ha ha ha.

[I hate it so much when she says something that bothers me etc, then she tries to cover it up by saying, “I was just joking. You need to lighten up.” Well, no, mom, you were not joking. I have never heard you joke in my whole life.]

Mom: I was just telling you about my friend. You have to be very careful and not overdo it on the computers. She’s so near-sighted that she’s almost blind because she’s spent all her working years on the computer.

Me: Ok.

Mom: Not good to get too high a degree.

[You don’t need a subject when constructing a sentence in Chinese. IMO this greatly contributes to Chinese mothers’ passive aggressive ability because you never know whom they are referring to in their laments. It could be nobody. Yet it could be everybody.]

Mom: So smart. What’s the use? Get a degree and leave and not come back.

Me [bracing myself for the impact]: … … …

Mom: Just like my daughter, right?

Me [really wanting to die now]: … … …

Mom: Now just counting the days until my daughter comes home again.

Me [Must. Pretend. I. Did. Not. Hear. This. Because. There. Is. Nothing. I. Can. Do.] … … …

Mom: Alrighty then. You must be tired. Have you eaten yet?

Me: No.

Mom: Why not?

[I thought to myself, “We are waiting for Godot”, and became more depressed because this would be a joke that my folks would never ever get…]

Me: Because I have been talking to you on the phone?

Mom: Oh. Ha ha. Remember to add an egg when you cook your Ramen noodles.

Me [Still wanting to die]: Ok. Bye mom.

 

 

So far in my luggages, there are FOUR Coach bags, 1 pair of Coach shoes, expensive eye cream, face lotion, anti-wrinkle lotion, unicorn magical hair to eliminate wrinkle from someone who’s almost 80, etc etc etc.

Why do I still feel guilty?

Why do I feel guilty that I did not goof off at school, drop out, work at some seedy places, meet rich older men, become their mistresses, bear boy children for them, become a lady of leisure so I can hang out all the time, and buy houses and cars for my parents?

Fuck. this. shit.

 

 

Circles

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Scene: The basement of an upscale restaurant in a hip Chicago neighborhood

Cast: Her. And a throne of other women. It would be accurate to add “mostly young and attractive (and white except her and one other woman, though this has nothing to do with anything really…)” Being young adds 20% at least to the overall attractiveness btw. Youth is something the young does not know to appreciate.

Setting: A “women @ company” event aiming to “unite” women in the company. Tonight’s event is for a popular Chicago chef to share with her exclusive audience how she overcame the male-dominant restaurant business.

There have been several emails going out to all the women in the office promoting this event. Come meet your co-workers, listen to someone who’s braved the male-dominant world and made it, be empowered (well, they have never actually used the word “empowered” in any of the communications. It’s like we are so liberated now, and all these “women @ company” events have to be coached in a non-militant, non-aggressive way), and oh yeah, have some cocktails and food while you do all of the above. She was not planning to go because she does not have any friend in the office. She just joined the company this past year and for all her work duties, she works with a different office remotely. For all intent and purposes, the space she occupies may as well be a rental space. Proof? This office location had two holiday parties and she was not invited to either. Sorry.

Somehow she decided that it’s her duty to support this bourgeoning group, “Women @ Company”. It’s simply not nice to poo-poo these events and cry about women not being valued (or valued less) in the company. With the sense of duty and “Oh, how bad can it be?” thought, she walked the 3 blocks.

She was relieved upon entering the room reserved for private parties to see one of her cubicle mates. Great! Someone she knew. She quickly got a vodkacran from the bar tender who listened sympathetically as she recounted how the office holiday party in another city that she went to last week had only a not-open open bar. The bar tender, probably feeling sorry, gave her a heavy pour of Ketel One.

She stood around awkwardly with her cube-mate and a couple of women whom her cube-mate knew. She instinctively sensed that one of the other women would rather not be in this circle that they formed. You just know these things, right? You could tell from the body language. The angling out. The slight turning-away. The “Oh I am so relieved you are here because now I don’t have to be talking to this woman whom I don’t know and have no interest in knowing” expression when someone else showed up. So now the circle was broken into two. Inconspicuously. But not, unfortunately for her, imperceptibly.  Leaving her and her poor cube-mate whom she suspected was cursing her own bad luck, “Wait. I want to be in that other circle. The new one!”

Cube-mate quickly announced, “Well, I have to leave. I have to be home by 6 to relieve my nanny.” Yes, cube-mate is one of the few other women in the office with kids, even though cube-mate is probably almost a decade younger than she is.

With cube-mate gone, she’s left in an awkward position. “No matter. I will go get another drink!” Bar tender was happy to see her friendly face again. “Another one?” “Yes.” It’s amazing how almost all the bars she’s visited she never had to tell the bar tender what she wanted after the first round. She turned around with her new drink, and was faced with one of the most horrifying realizations. She did not have a circle to go back to.

AWKWARD.

 

She went back to the vicinity of the aforementioned new circle, just to test the water. No. Nobody made that slight movement to welcome her. She’s now faced with a tough decision: “What the fuck should I do now?”

Cellphones.

She took out her phone and pretended to check her messages in the midst of women engaging in delightful conversations. “This probably looks really rude. People are going to think that I am being a-social.” Chastised, she put away her phone quickly and braced herself. She turned around, took a deep breath, and slowly made her way to the bar. With a FULL drink.

The few seconds felt like eternity and the short walk felt as if it’d never end. Sorry for the cliche. But it is what it was. Nobody. She did not know anybody. Nobody acknowledged her presence. No circles opened up. She positioned herself by the bar, with a FULL drink, pretending that she’s waiting in line. For what? Her drink was fucking full. Yes, she could have finished her drink quickly so she could get another one. But she’s going to be faced with the same hell with a 3rd drink in her hand. She quickly decided that drinking heavily and fast by yourself in a small, and worse, well-lit room where it’s easily seen that you’re drinking heavily and fast by yourself was probably more pathetic than the situation she was already in. She moved back to the new circle and she forced herself into the circle by physically tresspassing the invisible line that formed the circle.

“Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt. Hi, I am XXX. Nice meeting you.”

Now, this was not her imagination: If people want to include you, they will move slightly to make room. If not, they will simply turn around in order to address you, without moving.

It was made very clear to her.

“Fuck. This is even more awkward than before.” She quickly thought. “Do you know what time the chef will start speaking?”

“Oh. She’s supposed to start at 5:30.”

“Ok. Thanks!”

The women went back to their conversation.

She moved away from the force field and looked at her watch. 5:15. She turned around to survey the sea of circles and felt her eyes getting warm.

She needed to get out of there now.

On her way back to the office, her tears started swarming out of the corners of her eyes. Luckily it’s winter and it’s already pitch dark. The turn of the event caught her off guard. This was one of the selves that she was not prepared to confront.

She resisted looking at the darkened shop windows as she walked by, as her vain self was wont to, afraid that she’d see someone from the past.

“I thought I’ve left you behind many years ago.”

And she’d been proven wrong. So. very. wrong.

Fly your freak flag high

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or maybe this is not such a good advice.

Sigh. I have had a draft of this post for a couple of days now. I was going to write about how we should all let our hair down, show our true colors, and let our freak flags fly high. Way high.

To mix the cliches, we should fly that flag up and see who salutes.

I am too old, and life is too short, for all this shit of trying to fit in.

I was going to write about in the past two weeks, I had been under the duress of performance reviews (Oh, I absolutely hate writing self assessment and writing reviews for the others stressed me out to now end. I’d rather drink milk. Ok, maybe not. But you know what I mean. Maybe you don’t. Then good for you…) Due to the stress and the serious lack of sleep, I came a bit unhinged, according to my honest self assessment. I caught myself breaking into songs and dance moves at work. I was constantly invoking the  Hyperbole and Half’s meme: Answer ALL the emails! Invite ALL the peeps! Cancel ALL the meetings! Write ALL the reviews! Complete with the raised arm (which nobody else around me seemed to get…)

I believe it was unsettling for the people who sit nearby.

In my head, I saw myself walking over the edge, letting it all hang out, and I was at the same time feeling conflicted, not wanting to show my crazy at work. I wrote a co-worker that I was worried I have been flying my freak flag too high, kidding-on-the-square-ly, and he responded: Your freak flag is one of the few things that keep me going here. Keep your freak flag high.

I broke down and cried.

 

Hi, it’s me again. You know, the two straight-up vodka me. I can feel the alcohol working through my veins even as I am typing this. I know the feeling well. I am trying to NOT be drunk and I am very conscious of my drunkenness. I have to make extra efforts to keep myself lucid and carry a cohesive conversation and keep my voice at a socially acceptable decibel. I am also paranoid of people finding out that I am actually drunk so I try to stay as socially engaging as possible while mentally checking everything that I just said, and then try to dig myself out of it. My English becomes great. My accent is mostly gone. Two vodka me is awesome. Life at the party. (Note to self: Being “life at the party” is actually a sardonic phrase when everybody else is sober)

Well, all that immediately went out the window when I made a gesture wider than my brain could detect and control and knocked it down to the kitchen sink and broke it. All before 8 pm.

Yup.

So I am sitting here back at home wanting to cry because it was a party at the neighbor’s and all the other neighbors were there. I have already felt like an odd duck in this neighborhood. We were finally invited to a party! Maybe this time we could blend in and people would think that we are normal!

I am such a hypocrite, am I not? After all, I was the one the tweeted, facebooked and tumbled:

Today’s motto: Let your freak flag fly high.

And I made these memes because I was so damn proud of myself.

 

 

 

We are going to start a goddamn movement! Complete with a parade. With them flags!!!!!!

Seriously though? I am horrified to think that those people at the party are just going to think that my behaviors were due to my being drunk and rude and stupid: I mean, what kind of people got that drunk before 8, at a WINE party?! I don’t know why it bothers me so much. So just want to let you know. When I said I don’t care what others think, when I rah-rah-ed about how you just need to be yourself, when I encouraged you all to fly your freak flags high? That was more hypothetical. In an ideal world. If I were an ideal me. I would totally fly my freak flag. All. Day. Fucking. Long. And out in the open too.

I think I need to go to bed now.

I will fly my flag tomorrow. Sober too.

 

I’ve never been to me*

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This post is inspired by The Bloggess‘ latest post I have no fucking idea what I am doing which has inspired 500 (and counting) comments so far, including the three comments I’ve left there… *cough cough* yes, I am a comment hog… 

I have been grappling with this question: Who am I? since high school, and it has induced a lot of angst and crazy shit, including reading and misreading existentialist novels, and a suicide attempt because it felt exhausting and pointless to go on living.

I remember one of my teachers was particularly asinine. For example, this being an all girls’ school, she would interfere in people’s friendships whenever she thought the young women were too close to each other emotionally. (More about that, and my life in all girls high school some time later…)  Anyway, one day she decided to talk about our mottos in life. So she wrote a bunch of standard, expected, nice things, e.g. the Golden Rule, be grateful, Karma, etc. Then she asked us to vote. I did not raise my hand, thinking it would not matter. That bitch went and added up the vote, and got pissed when she realized she was one person short. “Who did not raise their hand?!” she hissed. She had that look on her face that made me defiant (otherwise I’m usually quite easy going) and so I raised my hand.

“Why didn’t you vote?”

“Because none of them are my motto in life.”

She smirked. “Well, what is it then?”

I got up and walked to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk and wrote my name. True (or truth). Then I sat back down.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She hissed again, taunting.

“It means one should be true to themselves and be who they are.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ok then. Let’s vote again.”

Nobody raised their hand for the first choice. Nor for the second one. Nor for the third one… … When she got to the last one, the one I added, every single person in my class raised her hand.

This youthful obsession with finding oneself and staying true to it came hand in hand with my obsession of Hermann Hesse’s Demian. I was hooked by the very first line from the book:

I wanted only to try to live my life in accord with the promptings which came from my true self.  Why was that so very difficult?

This being one of the classic Bildungsroman, the protagonist’s main objective was to find himself, on a path to enlightenment and self realization.

Each man’s life represents the road toward himself, and attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that — one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can.

This sounds great and vaguely romantic on paper, unfortunately, it caused a lot of heartaches and confusion because try as I might, as pretentious as I wanted to be, I could not seem to embark on that journey. I did not even know where the Yellow Brick Road started.

During my “self searching” formative years, I wrote the only short story of mine that was ever published. Don’t get too excited, it was published by the school magazine. I don’t even have a copy of the magazine and I can only barely remember what I wrote. It was narrated in first person (of course!) fashioned after Notes from the Underground. The Narrator complained about having trouble recognizing her own face in the shop windows when she walked by, in the mirrors, and in group photos. What she saw was a young woman with an unnatural smile that made her look as if the corners of her mouth were pinned to the sides of her cheeks. She could not recognize her. Blah blah blah. She ended up carving herself a smile. (WAY before The Dark Knight with Heath Ledger as The Joker…)

Now that I am (much much) older and (debatable) wiser, I think I’ve got it figured out. The problem is that most people still subscribe to the idea of a true self being somewhere to be found, that there is this essence of oneself to be discovered.  (I think this has something to do with Plato and Aristotle from the very beginning but I have given all my knowledge about Greek philosophers back to the teacher as soon as I received my diploma…)  It is somehow our job, as we grow, to discover what that essence, that core, i.e. our true self, is.

But here is the right question to ask, imo: What if there is no core? What if we are more like onions? What if we are made up of all the layers? If so and you still believe in finding that core, no wonder you feel lost: as you peel away each layer of the onion, you are like, FUCK! There is another door behind this door!   What if we shift the paradigm of how “selves” are defined, and that every single layer is YOU?  The real you. Everything you do, everything you say, every decision you make, every breath you take, is what makes you you.

To steal Sartre’s famous line: “Existence precedes essence. ” Your essence, who you are, is defined by the way you live your life, the actions you take, the decisions you make.  This also means one’s true self is constantly changing, because our actions are constantly changing.

The person you encounter each time, even though she may be slightly different from one moment to the next, is you.

Ergo, even when I am pretending, I am being myself because in some sense, when I become so sure of myself, I cease being myself. Ouch my head hurts! I need to stop right now!

Before I end this rambling, I just want to quote e.e.cummings, yes, again, because the quotient of pretentiousness in this post has not gone through the roof just yet!

 

 

* I am not endorsing the message from the one-hit wonder I’ve Never Been to Me. Just borrowing the title. Although I’ll admit, the song is a sweet sweet gem for a good old drunken Karaoke session.

Where I’m From

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I am from sunshine, sweat, and bricks of humid air.

I am from have you eaten yet.

I am from rice, salted fish, stir-fried greens, from soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, from ginger, star anise, and cayenne peppers.

I am from concrete jungle, clothes lines stretched-across the rooftops, the smell of sun in the fabrics, of gardenias, jasmines and sweet osmanthus.

I am from morning glories winding along random barbed wires, coconut trees lining the streets crowded with motorcyles, from white azaleas strewn on the ground after thunderstorms like discarded Kleenexes.

I am from greetings, and salutations, from strangers in the streets who are also uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and grandmas and grandpas.

I am from blood is thicker than water, from you don’t turn your back to your family, from families stick together.

I am from proper, ladylike, and demure. From handkerchiefs and silk scarves and pocketbooks. From you should always make sure your hand is not empty and idle. From knees together, ankles crossed.

I am from politeness, decorum, and unwritten rules that everybody abides by.

I am from hospitality, from it takes a village, from gossips and busybodies.

I am from if you swallow the watermelon seeds it will sprout from the top of your head, from don’t point your finger at the new moon otherwise she will come and cut off your ear when you are sleeping at night. From if you cry or misbehave, Auntie Tiger will come and eat you up.

I am from humility, gratitude and contentment.

I am from nobody owes you anything, from be grateful even if someone gives you a mere roll of toilet paper, from nothing you get is because you deserve it.

I am from temples, incenses, and gods and deities.

I am from reincarnation, from Karma, from eighteen layers of hell.

I am from lurid ghost stories of vengeance, from spirits within magnificent rocks and towering trees.

I am from convention, contradiction, and confusion. I am from Post-Colonialism, Late Capitalism, and Rampant Materialism.

I am from the proletariat.

I am from the hushed wrath of my father, the quiet disappointment of my mother.

I am from a bottle of Aspirins.

I am from the deafening silence of a mid-summer afternoon when the only thing you could hear was the cicadas.

 

Many thanks to Elly over at BugginWord for writing her beautiful piece “Where I’m From” and for alerting us to this wonderful writing exercise. Of course, I did not follow the rules in the template, not because I am some rebel chick but because I am not good at writing descriptive scenes. 

I just want to go home

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Photo Courtesy of Stew Dean on Flickr

 

Sometimes, for no reason at all, I would get a severe attack of homesickness.

Without any provocation, my heart would ache and I would get a sensation of emptiness and at the same time heaviness inside my stomach.

I recognize that feeling well.

It is an intense loneliness that comes from a herd animal being away from its kind.

I am exhausted: I just want to drop everything and go home.

Do Americans feel this way?

It seems to me that, (I know I am grossly generalizing here), Americans take it for granted that they will not be living where they grew up, and that they will, most likely, be away from their parents and siblings, simply on account of how vast this country is and how geographically widely distributed job opportunities can be.

So is the pang of homesickness less acute if you know you are not expected to be there in the first place? Not being adulterated by a sense of guilt? The mutual understanding that you are where you are supposed to be? Without the gnawing sensation that eats you away as you age, as your parents age, that somehow you have pulled a bait and switch on them?

“Oh I will be back in two years. Tops.”

That somehow you ran away. You did not stay put like 99% of the population on the small island, the size of Maryland.

Betrayal.

The feeling that you may have turned away and the chasm is now irreparable because…

many years ago…

you started dreaming in English?

Guilt is the trip

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Dear Blog,

I am very sorry for ignoring you for so long. I have not logged in for at least three days. I am so happy that you are still here.

Let’s see… It is 1:40 am right now. I am sad to say that I can at most spend 15 minutes with you. A quickie. And I will not even be able to cuddle afterwards.

My flight back home was delayed tonight so I did not arrive home until after 11 pm. I remembered this time to curb my urge to immediately pick up the house as soon as I stepped inside. I had a great conversation with The Husband about wine and wine glasses. Then I strayed: I thought, “Let me check work email for just one second.” You know how that turned out…

The Husband went to bed on his own. So I started feeling guilty. I did go upstairs to check on him and when he sounded really sleepy, I’ll be honest with you, I was relieved because I did not have to feel guilty about neglecting him. I mean, the man is tired anyway. I am actually being a nice wife for letting him sleep, right?

I rubbed his back for 3 seconds and he purred. That’s more affection than I have shown him most of the time. So, yeah, no guilt on that front.

I proceeded to pick up the bedroom and dragged the laundry downstairs because it would just be as easy as throwing stuff into the washer. It would be quick and easy so why not do it now rather than this weekend.

Turned out the amount of laundry will take about three loads…

I am now mentally calculating how much time it would take for me to clean up downstairs, put the clean dishes away (thanks to my trusted babysitter who comes every day after school), and do the dishes. I would like to get to bed at a reasonable hour, well, as reasonable as it could be considering it is now 1:50 am. I have to catch the 7:20 am train tomorrow to be in the office for a 9 am meeting with Da Boss.

So… why do I feel compelled to clean up the house NOW?

Why do I feel I would be a failure if I leave a messy house behind and go off to work tomorrow morning?

Why do  I feel so guilty about traveling for work, and now that I am home, about not being here to maintain the household?

 

I cannot form a cohesive thought right now so I am going to quote some passages from this article, The Bad Mother Complex that I came across around Mother’s Day. I have been thinking about it a lot, actually, ever since I became a mother.

The guilt had nothing to do with women’s actual ability to navigate competing obligations at work and at home; on the contrary, the study found that logistically, women were able to juggle the two spheres just as well as men. It’s how women felt about themselves while doing that juggling that set them apart.

Blair-Loy’s research centers around a concept she calls the work devotion schema — a kind of invisible, coercive mandate that permeates culture and requires us to see our work as a sacred calling, with meaning and value beyond just a paycheck… … it can trigger the uniquely moral emotion of guilt when family demands butt up against work allegiance.

The problem with the work devotion schema, Blair-Loy says, is this: While men and women both experience it, only women experience its mirror image at home. Blair-Loy calls it the family devotion schema; gender studies scholar Sharon Hays has termed it the ideology of intensive motherhood. Either way, it sets up a collision course of competing devotions for working women.

“Just like our culture has constructed work to have certain meanings and obligations, it has also constructed motherhood to have certain meanings and obligations,” says Blair-Loy. “Mothers who work full time are still trying to live up to this ideal of family devotion; they just have fewer hours to do it in…”    From The Bad Mother Complex

 

The guilt I feel as a working mother does not subside as the kids get older. In fact, it gets worse: now that they are old enough to notice the other mothers and how the other families live, esp. those presented on TV and in the movies.

Mr. Monk often demands requests that I make him food from scratch. It is not good enough if we make pancakes from the box of powder. It has to be made according to a recipe. I don’t blame him though. I suspect that to him it is a sign that I care as a mother, wherever he gets that idea of an ideal mother from (seriously I have no idea where he got it…)  Perhaps it also serves as a reassurance that we are like every other family, just a bit different, but not too much, now that the mother, i.e. me, also makes food in the kitchen as it should be. I am the embodiment of the family. If I am normal, we are normal.

Or something like that…

When I say, “No. I am sorry honey. We cannot do that this morning because of ____________.” the look he gives me is enough to send me on a guilt trip 8000 miles away and back.

It feels almost like an indictment.

So here I am. 2:20 am.

Time to put the load of laundry into the dryer and start another load.

 

ETA: 3:30 am. House picked. Dishes put away. Laundry #2 in progress. Kind of unpacked by emptying the luggage and throwing stuff either into a laundry basket or my work bag. As I was doing all this, I also remembered something else: Why is finding a babysitter my responsibility? Because I want to work so I am the one that should solve childcare issues? Whenever there is a scheduling conflict, I am the one being pointed at to figure out a way to hold my job. You know, all because I want to work, so of course I have to pay the price. I should stop now. I am just going to sound more and more bitter.