The Dreaded Topic

I think I have avoided the topic discussion of my parentals and family life because I tend to sort of try to just avoid or run away from issues I would rather not feel at the time. And talking about issues of some detriment often make me relive the emotions I have felt or feel from the effects of the situations. Even now as I am trying to get the words out, I am fighting the urge to just not even talk about what I have avoided discussing for so long. Some of my family issues that have been revealed coincide with my post Getting Dirty With My Masochistic Tendencies in the first post of August.

(The majority of my posts are all interconnected and so some stuff won't make sense unless you've been reading from the beginning or read previous entries where I've somewhat given explanations. Sorry, my posts are very long too)

I don't know, there's just an intense sadness I get from thinking about my family. There are so many underlying issues that if it were anyone else looking in or being first subjected to them, it would be too overwhelming. But for someone who has learned to just live with the situations, basically it is what it is. (I say that so much sometimes it almost makes myself sick)

I wish that I had the perfect family. I see some of my friends and their families are the epitome of what family should be. You know, the warmness of parents still in love that just exuberate warmth from all the fibers of their core. My family is not like that. You see the problem with most Asian families is their passivity. It's almost like a conservative tradition. We just don't show our affection though we try to portray being the perfect family. I guess that's why so many Asian families have their skeletons and deep rooted issues. It's just not socially accepted to publicly show affection, even when alone affection is at its minimum. What a shame right? Affection is one of the loves of life. And even so my family is not the most traditional with singular factors of the partial warmth I felt from my mother when growing up. But aside from that, that's it.

So anyway, where do I even begin?

My parents are not in love anymore. My mother barely tolerates my father. My father has become very difficult. And all of it sinks into my heart and creates a great brokenness and pain that I fear is unfixable. (And that's another story)

I have all these deep rooted issues and I'm afraid that I have become so broken and affected that I can't be a normal person. I feel out of place all the time and can't relate to happy people that are constantly okay.

About 4 years ago my mother was going to file for divorce. (I know my story sounds so generic because the world is filled with these sob stories. But you can think whatever you want, the emotions felt are still real regardless of the situation) You'd think by this age you should be old enough to just be okay with it. You'd think that there's a difference from when it happens when a person is at an elementary age to when you're old enough to make your own decisions. But to be fucking honest, there is no difference. It still hits you just as hard whether you aren't able to understand the situation or if you're even say in your 30's the prime of your life or my age. Either way, you're still going to be just as affected by it even if you say you wouldn't be. You don't know, you haven't been through it yourself. The cliche really is true as corny and overused as it is, you really don't know or wouldn't be able to understand unless you had gone through it or experienced it yourself firsthand.

It's funny in a twisted way what happens when you grow up. The movies you've once seen as a kid now make too much rather inappropriate or clever sense and you notice signs that were always there to begin with but you never fully registered them until you finally did.

I should've known. I can only imagine what my brother could've felt at the time since he is a good 5 yrs older than I am and able to register is better because of his far more developed mentality of the world. All the signs were there when I was little. From the outrageous fights I didn't understand that ended in open tears or more yelling (remember, parents always try to hide things from their children) or a couple times my mother even leaving in the middle of the night with our bags packed. A "fun" night to be in a hotel with Disneyland to cover up her true sentiments that just become burdens as time progresses. Ridiculous fights where of father not letting my mother take a certain car and her leaving on foot with us for a distance that could take hours/days on foot because she didn't want him to drive us. It sounds completely nonsensical right? Well it does because it is. But the things that seem to make the least sense are often time covers and triggers stemmed from a problem greater than you could ever imagine.

My father wouldn't sign the papers. In fact refused. What do you do when you've woken up years later and realized that you're completely submerged in a less than happy situation. And in the end my mother just stopped trying because she came to the harsh realization of who would care for my father? Of course they still love eachother but they're not in love anymore. She's not in love and it's too late for her. My father is too stuck in his old ways. There comes a time where you can't be changed. My father would try and then just like what men do nowadays, resort back to the old ways once they think everything is okay because they feel like they don't need to try anymore.

What is with that anyway? How guys feel that they don't have to try once they've gotten their cake? (metaphorically speaking of course for you idiots) How do you expect things to not diminish with time if you don't keep striving for best potential?

My mother takes care of everything, my father is solely dependent on her and doesn't know how to do anything much that involves the U.S. without her. She handles all the finances aside from also doing housewife chores.

I hate how Asian customs, the woman always has to care after the man. Waiting on them hand and foot. I loathe it, and she does that. Not like a helpless non-opinionated brainwashed servant, but tradition has taught the wife to look after the husband. And my father is even more old traditional than she expecting her to just do stuff for him that he could do himself just because he's too lazy.

She even told my father, if he found someone who was able to take care of him and make him happy, then he should go for it. But in the end she tossed the papers aside because, who would take care of him at this age? I mean really care for him like she did and has.

I feel that I have to be the one to keep the family together. My family consisting of my mother, father, brother, and I. Not my extended family, but even so I know that burden rests on my mother's shoulders. I guess the apple really doesn't fall too far from the tree right?

My brother barely speaks to my parents because of the difficulties and mostly when he has to communicate with them he turns to me to ask them even though he is the oldest and thus making it apparent of me being the youngest. He's made it a point to become separate from my family and taken the whole "family is just a small factor of my life" to a whole other extreme.

He's not a horrible person, in fact he has actually helped me in my personal growth at times when I needed a crutch. But him helping me is more so his lessons on me becoming more independent and separate from my family as to not let my family issues affect my own personal life so much.

But one of my major flaws is that I have too much empathy. I let my emotions run who I am. I am too compassionate and too passionate about life. Books and movies make me cry, seeing old people or problems of others make me sad, sometimes incredibly sad. I can't help it, I just happens. And you can't help how you're going to reaction to certain things or feel the things your feel. It's against the cosmic fates to try to decipher why we react and do things the way we do.

So thus it brings me back a full circle to my parents. Love is big deal for me. I am an idealist as well as a romanticist. I still believe in the true world and the beauty in it. I can't help but having everlasting hope for the better even if all the factors and energy in the universe have tried seriously hard to break that from me.

I wish they were happy. I am the kind of person who finds a resolution to everything. There is always a solution or there always can be one. I process things in my mind and find a way to make it better. But when it comes to my parents. It's unsolvable. To make a long story short. It involves possible cheating, probable cheating on both sides.

I hate that my father tries to make himself out to be the victim and my mother the bad guy in front of everyone. He's even tried to get me and my brother on his side and at one point we fully believed him. The thing about my father, he exagerrates and makes things out to be far more detrimental than they really are. But I'm not saying he's a bad person although I do hate how he talks to her and about her sometimes when other people are around. It's almost like he's trying to compete with her and make himself seem better while putting her down. There are things that you don't have to say in certain ways because they just sound so bad. You don't have to say things like that. But I can understand why he does the things he does. It's over compensation and reactions that come out wrong as a result of his feelings of inferiority. He tries hard for our affection and when I say our I mean my brother and me, but more so me because I make it a point to still keep them in my life and stay around them at times because I know it keeps them happy and it's what a good daughter does, my brother could care less.

For as long as I can remember, well there hasn't been a time where I can remember, my father has been on business trips. From here to China stemming from 2-3 weeks at a time. 2-3 weeks here and 2-3 weeks there. What sacrifices are made for the hopeful life of the family and children's future that in the long run play a huge toll in the family's mental/physical/emotional dynamic. Broken families are made everyday through decisions that you hope will lead to attaining the "American Dream." People immigrate to American in hopes to succeed, but what everyone fails to universally understand is that the American Dream was made by and solely for Anglo-Americans. People that have never experienced the harsh effects from being in an immigrated family- whether they themselves immigrated here or parents immigrated- is that immigrants work different hours than white collar society. The typical work hours would be 8hrs 9-5, but people that are connected to the immigrant life in any way shape or form know that there are two different worlds. the 9-5 world and the other one where one is working for almost more than 12 hours a day just to try to get ahead. 10-12 hrs at least if you're lucky.

I barely have a relationship with my father and I just can't do it. As much as I wish we were a happy family and that I could have a relationship with him, I just can't do it. He's never really been around and I know it's not his fault. The gap is too big. He tries so hard and I'm fortunate but sometimes it's too much that I really hate myself for wanting for him to just leave me alone sometimes.

And what kills me is the look on his face. I can't take that look. That sad one that is his own acknowledgment of how bad things have gotten. Okay it isn't as if that's read all over his face or if I really know what he's thinking, this is only what my intuition and vibes tell me. It's what I get from my vibes. And I work off of vibes a lot with people. Sometimes my intuition is so on point I hate it. But it's just that look people get, the look of no resolution and that things have escalated beyond your control.

My mother has that look too and there are days where I know are not as great as others for her. It's a continuous issue that has no way to be repaired. (Trust me, I've sat down with my other and tried to hammer this thing out and I get frustrated with those with jaded lives that just don't understand and fight me unyieldingly to tell me that there is always a solution. BULLSHIT)

In a previous post last month I said that I live my life at an emotional pain factor of a 6.5 some days an 8 some days a little less if I'm lucky. What kills me is what my parents have to live with on a day to day basis. I still have time to make mend mistakes before I even make them. But this, this is their life. I have yet to begin mine.

But I still wish and hope for their eternal happiness, so much it hurts.

Through all this I know it has affected me as much as I try to be as detached as possible with everything. I have relationship problems and fall for the wrong guys. I hate to admit this but my greatest fear is to end up like my mother. Don't get me wrong, she's a spectacular person and I really admire her, but I'm talking about her love life. I couldn't be able to be stuck in a loveless and unhappy marriage. I want to be old and still madly in love with the one I'm supposed to be with. Love unconditionally. I don't know how I'd be able to live without. I'm also scared that I might never find the right person, though I am 21 so this is the point where people or myself would tell me to not overreact just yet. Just yet. I can worry when I'm 30.

I still believe in the true world, but at what cost? I haven't even begun to divulge other sentiments that gnaw away at my essence and very being. But this is enough (more than enough) for tonight.