Incessant rumblings of the core

What a terrible evening.

“You make me sick.

You make me sick.

You make me sick.”

- My mother.

… Great.

Let’s rewind a moment.

Today I went to Gabrielle’s/GKid’s high school graduation. Left around 12:30 PM. Got back home at 7 PM (graduation ceremony, then dinner), then changed for Danny’s surprise graduation party. Got there around 8:15 PM. Got back home at 11:15 PM. Mind you, my Ading Brian both came and went when I did, i.e., when I’d first come home, so did he, but right when I got back, so did he. Sigh, that could’ve been some good bonding time, uh-huh. He even played Heavy Rain, aww. I didn’t know he’d like that game. Anyway.

I knew mom would be in bitchy mode (well, I’ve already mentally established that she’s just a bitch and sometimes shows a good side but that’s few and far-between), as each time I’d try to say goodbye she’d say such guilt-trip inducing/manipulative things, such as, “Oh, you’re so busy, too much personal stuff,” etc, she always is passive aggressive towards me for (God Forbid) living my life. Huh, sounds fucking familiar. It all makes too much damn sense and it makes me damn sick. 

See, she has guests coming over this week. Great. Fine. I said I’d help her tomorrow.

I got home after Danny’s party and she all but blew up in my face. Fan-fucking-tastic. Saying how my bathroom was dirty—I was going to clean it tomorrow. “Oh, but it’s not like you’re busy or have a job, do you. It’s one thing if you did,” etc, ugh, bull-fucking-shit.

So there she was, saying that I was coughing all the time because of the dust everywhere and that she wouldn’t care if I died because of it.

“But oh, Charamy, she only says it because she’s angry”— fuck off. That’s not true. I know that’s how she really is. Argue with me all you damn well please, you don’t fucking know what it’s like to be with this verbal abuse and Filipino/Catholic/Asian/parent/own guilt bullshit. You don’t fucking know. Trust me, I even tried to be civil with her and gave her an opportunity, but no.

“Give me one good reason you can’t clean your bathroom.” I had none. And told her as much. And that I preferred to clean it once a week. It’s so fucking stupid, I know, it’s such a small thing, except that it isn’t. “I know you. You’ll never change. You’re a slob.” “Yep.” “You don’t care.” “Yep, you’re right.” “You’re lazy.” “Absolutely.” 

It’s actually all true. I am a slob, I am lazy, and no, I don’t care.

I wonder why.

Maybe if I were raised better, maybe if I were a better person, maybe if I weren’t spoiled as much, sure. Yeah, I’ll fucking admit it. But you know what, the things I do care about, I put my all into it. Forgive me if I’m more content cleaning the bathroom once or twice a week versus GOD FORBID there is water leftover in the sink. Clean it every damn time? Do you know how much I use the bathroom? Ugh. Might as well forget the sink and have a black hole in there, I don’t even.

I’m just angry. It all goes back to resentment. How I’m pretty sure most of what I do is driven by guilt and anger and resentment, with some bits of love in there. It’s why I’m always so desperate and needy, I guess. Now I’m even more of a mess because I refuse to trust anyone and don’t know what to believe.

Therefore all the more I know I’ll just be some crazy cat lady the rest of my life. I wouldn’t want to put myself on anyone. I’m too fucking much and I’m going to get sick and die because I can feel that smoky water still. That’s a fucking problem.

“Don’t tell me what I can’t handle?” Shit, I know I’m too much. She’s too much, he’s too much, therefore I’m too much. “You don’t have to be some way just because of how you were raised?” People are damn near different. I’m not entirely like them, but I’ve adopted all of their negative characteristics. It’s fucking annoying.

Yes, I’m lazy. Yes, I’m a slob. Yes, I’m a horrible person. Yes, I know it’s a lot to accept.

What fucking annoys me is that she  really doesn’t think I’ve changed at all. She still brings up bullshit from my childhood. 

And so, let’s go back to,

“You make me sick, you make me sick, you make me sick.”

Without skipping a beat I said, “You make me sick, too.”

“Get out of this house.”

Haha. I would, oh, but I would.

It’s funny/sad. One of the things she pointed out was, “Oh, you never wanted to go home, ever since you were small. I know you. You haven’t changed. You go do all these things but you can’t even clean? What’s up with that?”

You know. I was younger then. I enjoyed being with other people. Can you blame me for not wanting to go home? Besides, our house was considered the “boring” house—of course. It still hardly looks lived in. It’s pathetic. I don’t care if you consider that clean, it’s just… ugh.

So, you know, whatever. This day started off horrendous and I did my best to keep my chin up where it was necessary. But as always, once I come home, all the shit hits the fan and it’s like, “What the fuck is it all for?”

And oh, it’s so fun. I’m going to probably post a status about maybe having to stay with others for a while because I can’t be here. I’d rather not be here with the guests are here, quite frankly, but GOD FORBID because oh nooo, we wouldn’t look like a “perfect family.”

Fuck that. We aren’t. And I’m tired.

OH. WAIT. RIGHT.

YOU KNOW WHAT I DID.

I ACTUALLY DID FUCKING CLEAN THE BATHROOM.

BECAUSE I WAS TIRED OF HER BULLSHIT.

I’m going to try to clean it every damn day to keep her off my back. Not because of love, or anything, just to get her off my back. She doesn’t fucking understand that.

And of course I felt like an idiot and I cussed my whole way through but I got that bullshit done. And really, there’s no point to it because I’ll have to do it again anyway before those people get here. Such fucking bullshit, I can’t even.

And tomorrow I’ll even help her clean the rest of this house even though it has nothing to do with me.

You know why?

Because I’m a good person sometimes and I’m starting to despise it. And probably because, oh, I’m Filipino, and there’s no way around doing things your parents ask you to. What I would give to be so free to say no. But despite everything, I do appreciate having a place to live and would rather not have my ass kicked out sooner rather than later.

And despite everything, I do hope I live. I really do. Ugh, I’m going to be sick, I know it…

The dragon looms below.

Ahh. I just love the feeling of tension in the morning. Right there, all in my shoulders.

Back to another passive aggressive morning.

She’s all, “Let me guess. You were up ‘til one in the morning talking to someone who has no positive influence on your life. Waking up like you’re some kind of rich woman.”

Sigh.

She’s wrong.

Yes, I stayed up late, but I wasn’t talking to anyone.

I’d even said, “Why do I have to be on the phone?” 

Ridiculous.

What I do with my life and how needn’t be her concern.

Yes, she’s my mother. But the passive aggression is just irritating.

And oh, yeah, she was upset because I forgot to remind my dad to water the plants (again) so she watered them herself this morning after having worked so hard.

“You and your dad don’t make it easy on me. You only make it more negative.”

Oh, really. Well, thanks.

I’m glad I learned in therapy that her happiness is not my responsibility, despite all the Asian upbringing.

sigh.

And if anything, most of my friends do have a positive influence on my life.

But it goes to show you what she thinks of basically everyone I talk to. She gets upset and it’s ridiculous. I can maybe understand why, but some of me just wants to bring her to a therapist to bring her around and have her realize that I’m an adult and she needs to stop being so concerned about what I do. I’m not doing drugs, I’m not doing idiotic things, I’m talking on the phone for goodness’ sake.

Now I’m not even going down for breakfast, just to wait until she’s out of the kitchen.

You know the saying: “If gets too hot, get out of the kitchen,” something like that. Yeah, well, I can feel her flames licking at my heels. 

Someone please remind me to stop being so “sentimental”…

… concerning my mother, anyway.

No, scratch that, both parents.

I’d been waiting to watch Legend of Korra with my mom.

Today’s been rough already. I went to the doctor—see, I have post-nasal drip sinusitis, not really surprised, I figured it was allergies, went to help mom, all of these things. But then she was getting stressed out and started taking her anger and stress out on me. 

Now she came out (we finally got home) and she said, “Stop with that korro korro thing, you must be rich to have all this time to spend watching tv. You’re a professional, not a teenager. Stop acting like one.”

Excuse-fucking-me. 

I know I’m not a teenager. I pull my weight around here. Yes, we went shopping yesterday, and yes, you paid for my things—but that’s because I thought you wanted to, I never damn asked you to. Don’t offer to go dress shopping and seem like you’ll pay for it, then hold it against me later.

Ugh.

Mom’s just a practical person. Emotion doesn’t hold with her. Or my father.

I hate being the emotional one in this robotic family sometimes.

I’m working on forgiving and accepting. It’s just a bitch-and-a-half and I just… It’s unacceptable. God Forbid I wanted to spend some quality time with you. God forbid I wanted to share that with someone, because I never have anyone to share my fangirliness with most of the time. But fine. I’ll just stop being sentimental and caring, and just treat everything like you do:

Shit.

Oh man. Why must shopping with my mother be such a trying task. I’ve never liked it. She was telling me about how we could enter another plaza straight from the road and I’d gone in there first, having forgotten I’d mentioned Ross first. She then said, “I don’t understand why you did that. If you don’t want people gossiping about you, do things right.”dgvugsnvdhhujcxsh MN hy UGH. I only wanted to stay home, edit photos, etc. Agh, maybe I will go change diapers if I have to after all, whatever gets me out of here. I’ll probably feel guilty later but just, ugh.

Are you kidding me?

We’re up early to attend mass-8 AM—and mom criticized what I initially wore, so I changed. Grumping the whole way. Tried to cover all my bases so she wouldn’t be finding more flaws as always or getting upset or such nonsense.

Well, I got downstairs and she chided me for selecting heels. I cried out in exasperation and said, “Really?”… Honestly, she really does find something wrong every time and I’m just done with it. I’m not a morning person, I get up when I have to, but we all went to bed late (around 1—it’s difficult to sleep when Dad’s playing his records right outside your room) and I’m just not in the mood.

I need to learn how to ignore her.

It’s been too long.

I was planning to go to Nancy’s tonight to spend time and deliver her birthday present (which I WILL finish, thank you very much). 

I was eating my salad from last night when mom said we could finish eating the salads tonight during dinner. Salad which she criticized and which I thought in my mind that I might as well have not given her. Seriously, she’s critical about salad? Ugh, so damn critical.

So when I said, “Probably,” she said, “Probably?” and I explained. She said Nancy should come pick it up because, she “is only here at the house only a few days,” so we should spend time, etc, and “oh, you’re socializing again, you’re never home,” that’s such bullshit.

I’m usually always home and occasionally go out. But of course when I do it’s like I do all the time. Such extremes, these people. The only way to make them happy is to stay home all the time and be a shut-in, but maybe even then they’d find that a problem. They’ll always find everything a problem and it makes me sick. Which is why I wanted to eat upstairs and avoid problems. But no. AGH, what am I, twelve?

I’m just waiting for when the criticism stops and when they see I don’t go out as often as they think—maybe once a week? God forbid. But it’ll never stop and I just have to forgive and accept that. I swear, I’d probably keep a chart but they’d probably use it against me.

In any case, I’m going to go back to cleaning my room. I think I’ll just be more upset about it this time.

It nearly breaks my heart

when my mother leaves without saying goodbye.

I know she’s disappointed in me, but… goodness.

I know it might not seem like a big deal to all of you, but a) we always say goodbye in our family whenever anyone leaves for work, because b) you never know what’s going to happen.

I love how everything has gone back to

“Please don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me,”

as I shuffle from my parents’ bathroom and slink back upstairs. (I’m still using theirs as mine is undergoing some repairs due to age + my mom doesn’t want to have to clean that one—so she says, though I’ve hardly used it and I only just cleaned it myself. Go figure.)

I haven’t developed enough of a backbone or a forcefield, even after all these years.

But I’m still working on it. I’m not sure how to have the words not stab me directly in the heart just yet. 

If it doesn’t help, it hurts, right?

On disappointment.

I’d been concerned about my mother because she usually comes home by 9.

Well, it’s noon now and she finally came home. I went downstairs to check if everything was okay (I knew better, but did so anyway) and of course she said, in her usual nasty tone,

“Don’t worry about me, worry about yourself, go find a job.”

Sigh. Sorry for caring.

I’m not sorry, actually.

I understand where she’s coming from.

She’s disappointed in me, I’m disappointed in her, we can all be disappointed together?

No, I don’t think so.

I’m just going to suck it up and teach and get the fuck out of here.

Life mistakes.

So I’ve learned that I should have indeed just told my parents a white lie that I would be going to work but instead looking for a new job entirely.

Because I’d decided to tell them about everything this morning—I’d told dad not to wake up my mother because I knew how that would turn out (she’d just gotten home from work and was already sleeping and is shit ass grumpy when she gets home)—but no, he did.

And oh, the bitchy tirade. And oh, the verbal abuse. And oh, how they both want me to do teaching (HAH).

Me, I’m going to take whatever I get, retail, clerical, what have you. just please, no fast food.

I just need something with security and health benefits.

The stupid thing is, she thinks I did it just to “have fun” with them when our family friends come into town. Please, I only learned about that last night, and that was <i>after</i> I’d been thinking about everything. That shows you how much integrity my mother believes I have.

I understand where she thinks all of her time and effort have gone to waste.

I don’t suppose she thinks about all of mine, as well. It’s always about her and always about how I’ve fucked up. (Hey, sounds like all of my past relationships. Again. Hence why they are so few and never again. Yes, I’m going to be a 40-year-old cat lady, what’s it to you).

So, yeah.

I was thinking about running my appointments up until this morning when I realized that I’d rather use the gas to find another job.

So there we go.

Except that after all this

I sort of feel like running them.

Just because I’m so frustrated.

Ugh, I can’t believe I’m unemployed again and have to put up with my mother’s bullshit. Just, ugh.