8 posts tagged “family”

i crawled into bed at midnight after i'd caught a bug - probably something i ate. my feet and fingertips were frigidly cold and i was writhing in dulled pain. pangs of nausea and persistent faintness as i tried to warm myself under the covers. then i shook myself awake. my room is at the front of our house which faces the street light - pale and orange overcast. unnatural light peeking through the venetian blinds flooding into my room. i gathered whatever strength i had and reached over with one hand to close the curtains.

but i couldn't fall asleep. do you know what date it is today? about a year ago - almost to the date - my grandmother had her fifth stroke, which then precipitated months' worth of hospital visits and rehabilitation. i haven't visited her once since i've been home - a week, it seems - and she lives about eighteen steps upstairs. i didn't think about her when i studied for my finals, when i was sitting in a sea of red during commencement, when i was idly flipping through the pages of a new book.

augusten burroughs has this uncanny ability to tap into certain sensory faculties that allows him to vividly remember moments in the past. some think this is a hoax, but i believed him when i watched him defend himself at Bryant Park yesterday (two days ago.) i can remember the smell of the stroke unit. lying at the foot of her large hospital bed listening to John Mayer on my ipod because i was going through some personal turmoil of my own. practicing french to myself through my ipod three winters ago while she visited the acupuncturist after her third or fourth stroke. how hard her grip never ceased to be, reminding me of years ago when she was yelling and subsequently crying to a four year old me while washing my feet. crying because she confessed to me that she was going to die and she'd be placed into the dirt.

a year of silence. last year, when all of her daughters and my sister and i were gathered around her bed before surgery, she grabbed each of our hands and strategically placed them together, so that we were all holding eachothers' hands. i'd leave the hospital with a  momentary pain that my parents and aunts couldn't fathom, tears suppressed on the R train. though by now, if she'd ever have the chance to speak, it'd be that she wished she were dead already.

do you believe everything happens for a reason? or, rather, that some thoughts are conjured up that are not exclusively of your own volition, but something - someone - else's? i'm probably rambling at this point, but i'm due for some catharsis.

my hands are quickly losing warmth again because they aren't submerged into a sea of blankets. i have no idea what she is thinking of; dreaming of. but i woke up and closed the curtains. 

my sister told me she was proud of me this weekend. coming from a family with a deficit of properly socialized reactions to achievements and accomplishments, this means a lot to me.

oooh, i feel as if my creative side of the brain has become vestigial. :-(

W, in a Dora the Explorer coif:

W: Mr. Sha said that if computers don't have nothing wrong with them, he's frightened.
Me: Oh yeah? Why's that?
W: He said that because if there's nothing wrong with them, the computers might go bad one day.
Me: So nothing should be perfect, right? I like that.
W: Yeah, Grace says "too good to be bad, and that too bad will turn good." Nothing should be perfect.
Me: Why not?
W: Because if everything was perfect, and forever it was perfect, then it will be boring.

SHE'S EIGHT YEARS OLD

I was a lot like you when I started college; I wanted to chase the dream of making an exorbitant amount of money, live in the city, rub elbows with the rich and famous. But then when I interned at VH1, my supervisor who practically lived in her office would talk about how she partied with Denzel Washington last night. And then I looked at her and realized she had nothing to really show for in her forties." - an old co-worker.

Last night, FJM and I were talking about the long and arduous path to self-actualization and how he has undertaken this feat. You know, pumping and truncating Maslow's classic hierarchy of needs: optimizing and pushing the envelope on the human condition. I alluded to how he reminded me of the teacher, whom I declared as "perfect," in almost every sense of the word. A perfect contrivance, nonetheless.

JLC and I were placing our bachelor degrees on the proverbial tipping scales to gauge what "careers" awaited us with this piece of paper. "We might as well just wipe our asses with a BA in liberal arts, " I said. "Or roll it up and smoke it." Because short of a PhD, we'll be resigning ourselves to the prospects of administrative or executive assistantship jobs for a few years. We'll have our MAs before the age of 23, and that in itself will still not bear the fruit of our ambitions at the age of seventeen, when we thought we would change the world.

But what exactly is a PhD? An MA in this city is as ubiquitous as Halal carts in Manhattan. DM scored a fabulous job at a notable accounting firm with her undergrad degree and a great amount of high school peers have either dropped out of college and settled for working in "personal enterprises" or nothing pursuant to high school. A PhD really is just a pretty huge dick.

I have this crushing fear that I'm settling. Crushing because I'm numb enough in various body cavities to not realize I'm selling myself short. But who are we to judge ourselves objectively behind a 3.9 GPA? My professors have expressed this agenda they have for me to get that pretty huge dick. My chairperson would find it a travesty for me to simply retire upon receipt of my MA. My mom and I discussed life after college - a few years of some administrative or analyst job - before I decide to climb the academic ladder some more.

I have this unnerving worry that I'm compromising my convictions when it comes to people. But what are convictions for Scorpios if not stubborn dogmatism?

Oh how I miss that naivete of high school. That influx of passion circa sophomore and junior year of college. We thought college and degrees boasted innumerable options for us. I don't regret an academic career in liberal arts, it's greatly shaped how I am, for better or for worse. I do know enough about myself that I'll always be doing something more than the 9-5 job.
 
I sometimes wonder what my life would've entailed if I and my parents subscribed to the "American Dream" imperative impressed upon first generation children. If I'd gone to St. John's for Pharmacy - something that virtually anyone I encounter asks me if I'm studying, because of academic association - and not something in the humanities. Or if I was adept in math and became an accountant. Law school is still an option, but I'd have to think about that years later. Or if I had the requisite long-term Asian boyfriend to whom I could refer in family settings, and not have predominantly white guys pick me up at a variety of hours at night. "You're seeing who now? What happened to [redacted]?"

I'd like to believe in the hypothetical. That everything that reveals itself to me is conflated with an endless array of missives and alternatives. I think I'll take my time with self-actualization, not that I'm impossibly far from it. Post-graduate degrees and doctoral dissertations can be deferred, as can that elusive six-plus figure salary. Being twenty-something can't.

"You can cry, but as soon as the two of you do, don't - it's embarrassing!" - Mom, to a corpulent set of daughters sporting bob haircuts, circa 1992 on the way home from Pathmark.

My grandmother hasn't been able to articulate her thoughts since early May, 2007. She is on a cocktail of prescription meds, one of which is Zoloft. She can't eat, and has a feeding peg surgically connected to her stomach. This means that any one of her four daughters or a home attendant feeds her formula. Any slight deviation - soup, for instance - is a risk, and sipping water may cause her to choke to death.

But this isn't a pity post. I was sitting next to my mom on the M train a few months ago when we were discussing "grown up things." She was showing me what her pay information looks like, various thumbing through documents that were exempt from my teenage eyes. "Well, you're an adult now, so I can show you this stuff," she said.

My grandmother was not a nice woman. I'd lost track of how many strokes she'd suffered, only to be informed by the doctor that this last one - the most severe- was her fifth one. Her fifth one! She and my grandfather went to law school together and she was a judge and he'd eventually risen to the ranks of an important official in one of China's provinces for a term. He jogs almost every morning when the weather allows it, and finds America "boring."

Each stroke took her down a peg - the characteristic stuttering, temporary memory loss, etc. Rather than look to each stroke as a warning to take better care of herself, every time I'd go back to Brooklyn for the weekends, I'd hear her characteristic blood-curdling yelling at anyone: my aunt, my cousin. She didn't exercise or radically revise her habits and had resigned herself to the front of the television. She was the epitome of the bitter old woman. My dad expressed sorrow and said it was up to me to help her around because "her own daughters don't really love her."

My aunt, with whom I have a tumultuous relationship akin to the sadistic stereotypes of Joy Luck Club, had a stroke in her late thirties. She's a very angry woman, like her mother. So now, out of obligation, my mom, aunts, and grandfather have devoted a great amount of time caring for this woman, my grandmother. A few winters ago, when I was home for the winter break, we became some apparition of friends as I'd go with her to her many checkups. What backfired was that I was the middleperson when she and my aunt fought heavily at the dinner table. I remember her washing my feet when I was four years old and she started crying about being buried one day. Now she can barely write out a sentence - articulate as she still can be - and her outbursts are abruptly nullified by a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Is she even human anymore?

My point is this. I currently have a few friends and family members who are going through trials of loss and sickness. As easy as it may seem to isolate ourselves from all the upset, it manifests in how we read, how thin and fragile our bodies become, our sleeping habits. They say laughter is the best medicine, but I think a spin on that should be people at large. After I went to college and calmed down as a confused and unambitious wild-child, my mother and I became more than just great friends, but we have an incredibly egalitarian relationship. Slight hints of worry still slip out when we go out for lunch because I'm not a Pharmacy major nor am I going to law school, but I've managed to convince her that I will be okay, that having a six-figure salary in my twenties isn't what my life hinges on.

Life's too short to be angry and bitter, to be spent yelling and crying. It's too short to hold onto prior hurtful relationships and grudges. It's too short to cancel friendships because of a fight, only to have one person to turn to, if they're willing. So if you know someone who just looks like he or she needs something - anything - let them know that you care, even if the situation doesn't warrant it. It makes all the difference in the world because there's an energy that effervesces from congeniality. Hey, especially in light of life after Bush, hope is all we have.

So it's 12:51 AM and I've had a long, long day. Waking up at 7, trekking to Union Square to buy food for the apartment, moving in, (and it's a fabulous space with a balcony in our bedroom), unpacking, friends visiting, Mexican food, etc etc.

I mention my father a lot on this blog, sometimes in a not-so-flattering light, sometimes out of frustration, or maybe even the seldom reverence. While I do cite him to be a major contributor of my traits, I fail to mention my mother in as great a share as I do my father. So I figure, rather than postpone the fleeting zeal I'd tap into, I might as well deprive myself of a few minutes of sleep.

I've thought about how to write this entry for some time. Especially since this birthday is of particular significance. But I knew what I'd say when I was in the car on the way to the apartment with my mother in the backseat. She was reminiscing the hardships that she and my father had endured when I was two years old. I wouldn't say we were poverty-stricken, but it was pretty bad. Unemployed, jumping through hoops to pick us up or drop either me or my sister off at day care centers/babysitters while making jewelry for paltry pay.

I realized my mother was and is amazing seven summers ago. She'd broken her foot while stepping into a large pothole and stayed home for the summer. She taught me how to cook this tomato dish. And as I'd fuck up, naturally, at fourteen, she'd demonstrate and that was when it hit me - that moment, with the spatula in her hand. I can still smell the tomatoes and hear the overhead fan from the stove whirring.

You should know that I grew up in a matriarchal family. No, not in the sense that my mother had domestic power in the private sphere but my father was the breadwinner and called the shots in the public sphere. She became and still is the breadwinner of the family. She calls the shots - she wears the proverbial pants. And I get frustrated when she doesn't know how to download attachments from emails, or when she berates me for losing a metro card, but I remember that she is the pillar of this household.

And we've gone through some tough times, nothing monumental of note. But she'll always wax optimistic, touting the phrase with that exaggerated accent of hers. And sometimes I'll tell her that her breath smells or laugh at her myriad catch phrases, or her haircut, but it's never out of disrespect. While it's a challenge puzzling my way through the pieces of her that make me me, I do know that becoming my mother, or at least a minimal conception of this, takes balls. And we joke that my sister is like my mother in that they are money-hungry, ambitious, and particular about things that promote image. And we know how alike my father and I are. But there's this ingrained fear in me, no matter how deep or under the surface it is, that I will resign myself at a later age, to mediocrity.

So I'm not going to post your age, despite the fact that you don't resemble it, but you should know that you are entitled to your pride. That, not only did you raise two daughters exceptionally well, but you enjoyed and lived a fulfilling life while doing so. That it wasn't all about sacrifice because you'd worked your way up, providing for so many. And while I am like Dad in many ways, I can only hope to know the cut-off point and switch tracks and be like you in the years that come. Happy Birthday.

but i had a fabulous day.

most of my blog entries are long and painful diatribes about so many things that run the gamut. truth be told, it could all be a gargantuan euphemism for complaining. i suppose i do complain. a lot. or bitch. and while i do make many posts bemoaning society, people, old friends, men, creeps, shortcomings, etc etc, i do make it a point to express how grateful i am for certain things and people with whom i've come to cross paths. regardless, i'm, dare i say it, happy.

not happy as in i'll pounce a stranger and cause him to spill his 4.50 grande latte from starbucks to overshare a manic episode a la bipolar disorder, but i'm feeling less like an emotional swiss cheese and pretty good, physically, mentally, emotionally, et al. totally aware of the intravenous run-on sentence, but i digress.

i will admit that i did feel like crying on the M15 bus on the way to the LES earlier this afternoon. just the heaviness of stressors and my compulsion to interpret and shake them. yes, shake them, like how you shake cream until it curdles and coagulates into butter and bits, real and solid. but nevertheless, i've always ascribed some sort of therapeutic properties to being in the LES, strange enough as it is, and it certainly did help that i was there with JLC. so i ate and read, froze my tush off because i deigned to wear a super-short dress which was met with "your legs are killer - but we'd already discussed this" ;-).

and after initial disappointment in not finding something in an impromptu reconnaissance mission for a fellow Voxer, the answer was steps away from the restaurant in the LES and i got what i was looking for, well at least what she was looking for.

so i'm downing vanilla soy ice cream, have people texting and calling in and whatnot and making myriad plans which will leave sleep as something to be desired. but regardless, i'm excited. about friends, about people, about places and such.

just thought i'd write this all out, because even if i feel like my doing so will jinx it all, at least i've had this momentary feeling that i can claim as my own.

"A true friend is someone who knows there's something wrong even when you have the biggest smile on your face"

I am exhausted in every way possible. Physically, emotionally, mentally. It's been a long weekend for me as I've been on my feet, away from home, and with people. Yet, as the day comes to a close, I'm here for the few minutes, reflecting and feeling emotionally impaired. What makes this worry me most is that my occupying myself with others is a way to keep the band-aid from peeling and unraveling my hurt. But I know this isn't so, as I've been writing here routinely.

The Russian and I went shopping today for her new job wardrobe. Three hours into it, it quickly dawned on me why I hate "real" shopping and why I only reserve it for a few days a year. Mind you, I am effortlessly trendy and blend right in with the so-called hipsters in Washington Square. Five dresses, two shirts, four bottles of lotion, one pair of shoes later, my cheery disposition no longer retains water. And the more I try to compensate for being a mood killer by smiling, the more she understands and tries to inadvertently cheer me up.

And as we commiserated on miscellaneous issues scattered across the board, I am quickly reminded of how I have those who will keep me from crumbling to pieces, whether they are sought after or not. An unexpected phone call, an offer to meet up for dinner, an objectifying, yet congenial, glance from across the room, two "key players" being there to help pick up the slack, a reminder of why seven years feel like nothing, to name a few.