Sick

One moment someone jokes around and tells you how much he loves you, and then brushes you off as he rushes to be with his boyfriend for the night-- with the promise that tomorrow time will be set aside for me.

Ha, and who am I? What am I supposed to be? Some low life with no life waiting around for someone to come and comfort and reassure?

Is it not cruel?

Chin up

"Chin up!"
"Get on with things!"
"It's been so long already!"
"Why are you dwelling still? You have so much to live for?"

I know they mean well. I know they don't wish to see a friend down and depressed. but if it were so easy, I would not be like this. Why would I, someone who was always so strong, so brave in the face of the most adverse of circumstances, choose to be depressed, choose to be stuck in a groove and choose to be unable to work, unable to focus, unable to find something positive in life? Why would I, someone who has seen loved ones struggle with life and lose their lives, want to waste away my days, weeks, and be caught in cycles of poor sleep and exist in an almost perpetual state of dazedness...?
If it even challenges and troubles monks who have practised for over three decades, how am I, a simple lay person whose practice is weak and patience is fragile, supposed to deal with the traumas of loss and pain?

"I'm a rookie in mourning..." I described myself. How much mourning is enough? How much is overindulging? How much is lingering? How long is it all going to take? Why do I break down and cry at the slightest trigger or association with death, family, mother, cancer etc? Is it my right to mourn for as long as I wish to, and am I entitled to have my rights as a mourner respected?

Meeting the support group for the mo(u)rning walk again helped clear my head a bit. I outed my frustrations at attempts to approach my friends and vented how at times I seem to gain not support
but instead dismissive cliches that show that no one really understands and no one really listened.

It is normal, the group leader said, and we are all guilty of cliches in the face of death. Because it is so gripping, so emptying, so lonely and painful an experience that there are simply no words of solace strong or soft or soothing enough to take away pain. People may not mean to hurt you or rub salt in your wounds. Friends would never intentionally want to kick you while you are already down. At times I wish to shout back: "When it's your turn to deal with the loss of your last remaining parent, then perhaps you would say this easily..."

But sometimes pushing you to move on, measuring you against the behaviour and happiness of "normal" people, comparing you to how other people seem to deal with loss and mourning so easily is not fair. Loss is ever so personal, ever so emotional and spiritual, and we each have own own pace and we each need our own space to grief and to process our pain and loss.

I got many hugs, and soothing words. Again, the members of the group look at me with such sympathy and compassion because I am the youngest member they have yet encountered. "Hang on there..." one told me, and described how this whole process is like mountain biking. You have to go through mud and get dirty and perhaps even lost before you can find your way. But you control the speed and direction of your process, your very personal process. One day, you will get the hang of things. One day, the pain will be less, the tears will flow less often, the sorrow will subside and happiness and contentment will resurface.

It is a process of adjusting to your own body, your new circumstances of life. And sometimes in the process you will realise that those in your life whom you thought were dependable and supportive fade away as you find deeper and more meaning in the new life and new self you are.

It takes time. It really takes time...

Valentines Day

Every year around and on this day, I feel sad... Valentines Day, the day of lovers. Last night, my ex came by and he stayed the night. We chatted, or more like be listened again to me rant and vent about my loneliness and how broken I feel, and how this month is just one meaningful (and therefore difficult) day after another. Dad's anniversary, New Years, valentines day, and birthday...

Why is today difficult? Because for the longest time I've been longing for love, for affection and intimacy. I had it, but I let it go, and perhaps it was wrong and made more difficult talking to my ex about all this, as I have to restrain myself to hug him and hold him close...

All the people I've ever cared about and loved. They're all gone. And friends? Well, most of them have disappeared or become so distant, partly because I simply cannot stand the for strange and sick attraction to gossip and talking about other people's lives. So what am I left with? Me, myself and I.

Am I being self-obsessed and drowning in self-pity? How can I say I'm not loved when my ex, yesterday, sat there tearing and with red eyes told me again how I don't know he has loved me, in the past and now. How can I sit there and complain I'm not loved and how lonely I am when he is taking his precious time to be with me...?

No, I don't know how much love I am given, no I don't know how loved I am. In fact, I do not believe it, I fail to believe I am lovable and can be loved. And I find myself struggling to love. It is too easy to point to the past, to say it is all because of what happened to me as a child. But the traumas of the past feel like they're a heavy shadow I cannot shake away. And I so long for a hero to come along to carry me, support me and pull me up...

Maybe I am selfish and want things to happen the way I want, how I want it and when I want it. But really after losing the dearest members of my family, is it not natural that I long for love, long for that special someone, long for that level of trust and intimacy one shares with a lover?

Unfilial son

I saw this video that was shared on facebook that made me cry. It is a recording of a confrontation at a mall in Taiwan. You see this heavyset guy shouting at his mother, who is in a wheelchair. The guy is forcing his mother to drink coca cola, and to do so by four o'clock. His tone is rude and aggressive.A crowd soon gathers, and members of the public start to shout at the guy, telling him off for scolding and abusing his mother like this. A lady shouts: "How would you feel if your own child treated you like this?" The guy replies defiantly "This doesn't concern you, look at your own mother first!"  I did not see it, but according to someone commenting in the background, apparently the guy was also kicking and pinching his own mother. In the end, security people and representatives of the mall came and defused the situation...

I cried because I thought of my own mother... Of course, we don't know the whole story or context of what led to the son being so rude and aggressive towards his own mother. Maybe he's been so exhausted and worn by years and years of care-giving... Maybe there were events in the past that  made him so bitter, so angry...

But I think back at the way I treated my mother, and remember again that never again will I be able to hold her, see her, speak to her if I wanted to. I have been rude and impatient to her, but never, never ever have I wanted to abuse her (or anyone for that matter...) physically and torment her mentally. I love too much to do that to anyone... I loved my mother too much to cause her any more pain and suffering...

Breakdown

Where is this fear coming from? Why did I just lash out at my friend, who was trying to joke around and lighten the mood just as I was about to head off to work? There are all these sensitive buttons, it feels like, and one trigger can cause me to be gripped with such such fear, self-doubt and incapacitate me for moments...

I wake up some days and feel like the world is against me, like I am the only person left in the world, the victim, the object of people's gossip. Do they even try to understand me, try to imagine the intensity of what I've gone trough throughout my life till this day before they sit there and judge and make comments? It gets to me, it really gets to me now more than at any other time: people do not understand, and yet they feel they can give comments and advice as if they know and understand it all. As my group counsellor said often that does more damage than good...

I felt terrible that this morning just after breakfast I had another meltdown in front of my friend who stayed the night. Things were going fine, it seemed, but then one comment, one thought just tore a rift inside my psyche and I became so apprehensive and defensive. It was not fair on my friend, I know, I know. But I could not help but look at him and see him judging, see him look at me with such eyes of pity and perhaps even disdain.

And then a flippant, outlandish comment was made. My cat grabbed onto my foot and dug her claws into my sock. It's her playful mode. I tried to walk away, shake her loose. My friend commented I was abusing the cat.

It was meant as a joke, but the word abuse and idea of me abusing another was too raw and unleashed a flood of memories and all that I told myself repeatedly, repeatedly, I would not do to another being.



Maybe it's all in my head, all in my head...

But there are days when I wake up, when I feel and when I breathe and imagine: what if I don't feel, don't breathe any more...

Dream: hospital

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New Year's Day, my first dream of the year of the snake.

The same dream was repeated twice during my sleep. I was at the hospital, speaking to a doctor. It was my mum's physician. He updated me on mum's health condition. He shook his head as he did so, it looked bleak.

I stirred from my sleep, so agitated and disturbed that I found myself hugging my own body in a search for reassurance and comfort. Twice it happened in the early hours of the morning. So agitated, so disturbed...

Lunar New Year's Eve

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In Seattle. Just had a nice dinner at the Crab Pot, a famous seafood restaurant I first stumbled across when I came here for the first time by myself in 2009. Earlier, with my uncle and his family, we visited Boeing's Everett manufacturing plant, something I also did alone back in 2009. How much has happened since then!

The last time I was in Seattle day before Christmas in 2010. I met my cousins and aunt here, the plan was to show them around. But I boarded a flight that very night and flew straight back to Taiwan. To be with mum, as she went through intensive chemo. Good that I went when I did, for within days of my arrival, the doctor told her about the tumour growing on her spine. Effectively the doctor told her she didn't have long to live...

Mum is gone now. Those days and events back at the end of 2010 seem to be from a different era. I was pensive, struggling to find my way in life, but I was somehow doing alright. Now... I'm barely surviving. Now... I'm feeling the wrath of over-dependence on someone who I should have known would leave me. It just pains greatly that the absence of companionship and care comes at a time when I need companionship and care the most.

My uncle and his family can feel that there is a deep void in me. It's difficult to hide it, even if I try to keep a smile and keep up conversation. Mum was my uncle's closest sibling. I learned from my cousin that the day I called here to inform my uncle that mum had passed, he was greatly saddened. They were so close...

New Year's Eve dinner we ate at the nice seafood restaurant. It was pleasant, but not the same. Not the same as the reunion dinners I used to have with my family, not the same as the dinner I had this time last year with mum and my nephew, even though mum at very little and looked so weak. I guess from now on I have to get used to it, get used to life not being the same...

With family

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Perhaps it sounds like I don't appreciate fully the presence of my extended family in my life, but I really do. again and again, I am touched by the kindness and generosity my uncles and aunts offer me.
And this visit to Vancouver to visit my mum's youngest brother is no exception.

They welcomed me as if I were part of their (inner) family. I felt embarrassed that all I did in the few days I stayed over was eat, sleep, play (with my cousins...) and eat and sleep. My uncle proposed to go on a trip together, and together we went to Seattle. I felt bad they were paying for me, so I offered to pay for some things. Just before rushing to the airport, my uncle stuffed a was of cash in my bag, much more than what little I paid for during the entire period I spent some time together with my cousins to explore downtown Seattle.

Clandestinely, I put the money back (actually, under a book about ridiculous and humorous laws in Canada... Befitting, because it was ridiculous to be given money). I know, growing up part of our culture is for adults to give money to children as part of the new year celebrations. As long as you're not married yet, the relatives will come with red envelops stuffed with money.

I felt bad taking from my uncle. He is the only one working now, and he has to support his family of three living here in Canada on his salary. I know this situation well, for it is in a way the story of my dad and my family. Sacrifices, separation and being thrifty and saving every cent so that the children can have a better education and better prospects abroad. My dad, my mum made these sacrifices. And I see my uncle doing the same for his family.

That first night when he arrived, the scenery was so family, and so touching. I told my uncle that. It reminded me so much of how dad used to visit after a long period of separation and he would unpack all these delicacies and gifts for us the children. In our culture, it may not be customary to express life in as many words, but the little surprises and gifts say so much already.

I stood by the side and watched the kids help the dad unpack... Pens, agendas, snacks, powdered drinks, frozen fish and dried mushrooms... Make up and household goods and supplements for my aunt. My uncle even wrapped two model cars carefully and brought them to Canada. The model cars have been with my cousins since try were really young. My uncle was ever so careful not to damage the cars. It was very touching.

Last someone brought me so much stuff was when mum visited back in 2011. And the last time dad visited and brought us so many things was in 2007, the lunar new year of that year. It crossed my mind that for as long as I live, I won't ever again experience parents bringing me goodies and little gifts. How I miss that, how I will miss that so...

There were moments when my uncle and I were alone. I spoke about how I've been, and he has always been so concerned about my wellbeing. Customarily, should anything happen to my parents, it is the uncle (mum's brother) who takes on the responsibility of taking care of the orphaned children. I guess, and I can feel more than ever in the way my uncle kept on encouraging me to stay longer, that he feels he must do everything he can to help me on my feet again...

We spoke about mum, about mum's visit to Canada, about the were she was, about the things she used to say. A couple of times I teared. It was rough, again, the holidays are the toughest on people who have lost loved ones. And I see in the eyes of my uncle that he too feels a loss. My cousin told me how stricken with grief my uncle was the day I called and gave him the news (and later, a friend who attended the funeral, told me that my uncle was deeply affected and in tears ...) Though we feel loss and pain in different ways, it is all so personal, all of which makes us human and proves to us again and again that we feel, we love, and we hurt...

The holidays are the most difficult, the most unbearable. And I am realising why.