Category Archives: Family

Mother Meltdown

I had another tough time falling asleep last night. We were at the hospital late, and then dad kept obsessing about getting all his MileagePlus points and money back for my brother’s missed flight. I asked Johnny to call and take care of it, but surprise, surprise, he said and did nothing. No, I don’t expect an immediate turnaround from the other side of the world, but I do expect some reply with an ETA. Whatever, he’s a fucking flake. So after a full day, I still had to get on the damn phone with customer service to process the return. Done.

Then I was up late chatting with my bud N about all the shit that had gone wrong on this trip. Seriously, aside from my grandfather being in stable condition (for which we are very grateful), this trip was just chock full of shit going wrong: there was the toupee/tarmac debacle on the flight out, followed by getting one of the shittiest POS rental cars ever (Avis, Never again!!), followed by a day of heavy snow, followed by my busticated zipper for my boots, followed by my hair getting stuck inside the hairdryer, followed by room accommodations at the “refugee camp” aka my grandmother’s pigsty/hoarder’s house, followed by a major meltdown with my mother, followed by losing my phone charger and all my devices running out of juice, followed by dropping my grandmother and mother at the hospital entrance (while I parked the car) only to LOSE them, followed by news today that Martin had a seizure. Yes, when it rains it pours, but fuck man, this is a goddamn monsoon!!

So my mother pissed me off big time today. I was researching acute rehab facilities (where my grandpa will go after he gets out of the hospital), and I started telling her that 1) grandpa should never drive again 2) he and grandma need to move out of their cluttered, dingy house. Mom just kept telling me not to worry about it. That they are fine living there. If they aren’t ok, what are regular folks without resources supposed to do? Uh, those regular folks are literate in English. Or she said that they could just live with her and dad. Um, first off, my mother is so weak, she can’t even lift a bag of groceries. Puhlease. So I tell her the grandparents need a place where people are around to help them with the day to day. She basically said I was overreacting, and that I should work on my patience and stop being so cranky. Oh no, you didn’t!!! Are you fucking kidding me? Wow. If it weren’t for me and my impatience, you’d still be stuck in Taiwan. You would not even have a clue about anything that is medically going on with grandpa. Maybe if you could pay attention long enough to focus and listen, you could take on more responsibilities, and Dad and I wouldn’t have to run all over the damn place, doing all this shit that YOU clearly cannot handle. OMFG, I was LIVID. Walked out of that hospital room in a near-blind rage. Interestingly, WTF has her little emperor accomplished all this time in all these years??? Not a damn thing. Doesn’t know how to book flights. Doesn’t even know how to pay bills on time. Doesn’t have to do a single thing while all these details get dumped on me to work out.

The thing about my mother. She has always been a rather confused person. Whether you explain in her native tongue or in English, shit has to get repeated over and over again. For one thing, she doesn’t listen. She just concentrates on what SHE wants to say next. You totally know people like that. Second, she is fucking co-dependent as hell, and that has certainly made her even slower. I dunno. Maybe I am getting bent out of shape over nothing. Maybe there is something medically wrong with her brain.

These last several days, I have been clocking in very long hours at the hospital. The good news is that the nurses check on him often, but I still want to be there to translate. Anyhow, after a full day at the hospital on Friday, especially with Gramps getting aggitated (sundown syndrome) and needing me to restrain him, yeah I processed the stupid flight credit; then, afterwards, I had to explain the situation to mom like six times: I got your ticket and dad’s ticket using points from your frequent flyer account. I got Johnny’s ticket using points from dad’s account bc yours didn’t have enough. In Dad’s account, I bought additional points bc he didn’t have enough to cover the full roundtrip. United does NOT refund any monies spent to buy points, but you get all the points you purchased credited back to your account for the unused flight. In other words, the ticket was 115k points (some portion of which we had to purchase). We will get all 115k point re-credited to the account, available for use in the future. She was confused about every single aspect: her points, her account, the cash, the award points, purchased points, the number of points used, blah, blah, blah. Round and round and round. She fucking exhausts me.

And the thing is, because of her many years of co-dependence, she can’t do ANYTHING on her own. Can’t drive. Doesn’t handle any finances or bills. Doesn’t know how to research anything online. She CAN cook and clean and handle medication orders for my grandparents. Beyond that, all bets are off. And of course, she blames Dad for her not knowing these things. That’s the thing with my family. There is always SOMEone to blame. That’s how shit gets explained.

When I was growing up, I remember we had to shift around the family room and living room furniture a gabillion times, bc she didn’t like this or that. Did she ever lift a finger to move the furniture herself or with us? Nope. She just directed us, and if we were sick of schlepping the furniture, she just would harass us until we gave in. So amidst all this bullshit going on with my grandfather this week, my mother is additionally obsessing over some granite dining room table, custom-made for their condo in Taiwan. They spilled food and water on it, and the surface stained. They have talked to the contractor and gone back and forth a few times. Supposedly, the contractor sealed it, but stains are still there, so what does she do? She keeps asking ME to research the answer. This started months ago. Meanwhile, my dad’s sister used to have a construction company. I mean, if the makers can’t solve the problem, what the fuck am I supposed to do? So this trip, she started asking me to research this again. And she isn’t even clear about the material. First, it was marble. Now she says it’s granite. My father suggested just putting a clear plastic topper, but mom insists that that defeats the whole purpose of having the nice table with its texture. I get it, she wants things done right but Jesus Christ. find the solution on your own!! Maybe see if there is a Home Depot-like store and ask people there. Is this really something I should be spending my time researching? Meanwhile, WTF is Johnny doing?? He knows English AND Chinese. And he LIVES in the same country where they have the table. Put him on this shit. She just annoys the hell out of me with these lame, low priority issues. Honestly, if she weren’t my mother, I really would not be dealing with her.

Doing the Right Thing

There’s a term in Chinese that people use all the damn time. It translates into “supposed to,” and it is often used in response to receiving thanks for something. The other day I was kinda remarking about how Chinese my grandparents’ friend Mrs. Li is. She’s super talkative and loves to give (unsolicited) advice on what you ought to do. Like her whole thing about NOT rushing to Maryland. Thankfully, I took John’s advice instead of hers: by the time she called me Thursday morning, I was already in DC. Anyway, today she and her husband came by the hospital. Her hubby is the chair of a Chinese veterans’s association. Dude seemed like a pretty fun guy. He called my gramps “Big Brother,” and he was wearing a leather bomber jacket that said “Sean John” on the back. That’s right: a 78-year old P Diddy bad ass. He had such an uplifting spirit too. He told my grandpa that all the majhong buddies were waiting for him to get better and return to the tables. It was an unusual show of optimism and enthusiasm for a Chinese dude. Usually, they’re a bunch of buzzkilling Debbie Downer pessimists. 😛

My parents were profusely thankful, bc the Lis basically saved gramp’s life by getting him to the hospital quickly and by signing off on the brain surgery (since they couldn’t get ahold of my parents). The Lis just kept saying, ing gai de, meaning no thanks needed, that’s what we’re supposed to do. I guess in English, this saying is equivalent to, “It was the right thing to do.”

I was thinking later today about how for some people, they have such clarity on how to act and how to behave. I wouldn’t clump this in with manners… it seems so much more important than superficial pleasantries. Rather, it is a willingness and confidence to do what has to be done without hesitation or fear. My parents have never relied on friends in any capacity under circumstances like this. They’ve just always had an expectation that they or family would handle such cases. I think the Lis really demonstrated to them that good friends in many ways are the family we choose for ourselves. I hope that they view friendships differently after this. Not that they need any lessons, but I think they have never really understood how much I rely on my friends for support. Maybe this helps them see things in a different light.

 

One of those Days

Today was our big one-day fundraising campaign at work. Basically, we were tasked with getting 4,000 donations within 24 hours in order to receive a half mil donation from an alumni couple. Leading up to this event, I was starting to get a little stressed. The goal not only seemed rather arbitrary, but it was also kinda ambitious. I couldn’t sleep the night before. In fact, I had an anxiety nightmare where in my dream, I woke up three hours late, and the boss was calling/texting asking where the fuck I was. Of course, in real life, I got up really early and was the first one into the office. I did the pre-launch tweaks and then we were off to races at 8a sharp. From then on, I pretty much live-tweeted all damn day. Along the way, my tightass coworker came by and made a comment about me being cranky lately (Hardly!! I was livid that ONE day last week and that didn’t even involve a face-to-face confrontation!), but she said on the plus side, I was doing a great job, and hopefully, my mood would be better after the campaign was over. Nice. Is she my mother, bc I am all too familiar with that backhanded compliment bullshit. That said, in moments like these, I try to embrace the radical honesty approach. Maybe I just need to be more cognizant of how I react. Regardless, the morning kicked off pretty well. There were a lot of interruptions, including an oddly-timed project meeting (uh, why wouldn’t you meet to discuss logistics and details BEFORE the event?), but thankfully, my last workplace trained me well for frequent disruptions and random meetings. Then, a couple of times, my boss invited the head honcho to my office to show him 1) a video made by my new coworker and our intern and 2) my social media control center. I was like, why does he need to see my twitter/social media admin pages? Just tell him what I do. But she felt it was important for him to see it. I dunno. So fine. I was feeling ok, because the donation numbers were climbing rather steadily (about half way to the goal before 1p). On the other hand, the head honcho expressed that he was “concerned.” Dude, we’re only 5 hours into the challenge. He then admitted to being a worry wort. Great, just what I need. An hour later, the executive director of the student call center came by and asked what else I had planned for social. He said things were starting to level off. Uh, it’s called the post-lunch food coma. Do you really think people are productive and on it in full force straight through the day? Uh hello, who do you think they are, ME?? Haha. Kidding aside, these two were starting to stress me out. About another hour later, the office manager forwards me an email from a young alum complaining about the quality of the institution’s social media channels. I’m paraphrasing here but her basic gist is: The content doesn’t reflect all the world-changing work the community is doing. There are all these irrelevant memes that water down how the school will be taken seriously. The photos are shit. I talked with my colleagues, and we looked at competitor schools’ social channels together, and they all agree with me. Generally, I consider myself a logical thinker. I like to examine both sides and thoroughly think about multiple facets. And I’m sure that on any other day, I would have been irritated by the criticism but not upset. But this afternoon just started turning to sludge really fast. On top of me doing the constant live-tweeting crap, people kept harassing me about making my personal donation to the effort. Yeah, basically, all faculty and staff were expected to give something. It’s fine, it’s not as if I don’t have $10 to give, but I just really don’t appreciate the bullying/peer pressure tactic. Still, I know I have to pick and choose my battles, so I agreed to donate. Well, I dunno if people didn’t have confidence in my follow-through or what. They kept bringing it up. Blah blah. I was the ONLY one in the entire staff of 100+ people who hadn’t given yet. Meanwhile, the challenge runs through 8a the next day. We have time. I know people weren’t intending to be naggy, but I really don’t like being told repeatedly what to do. It’s like living with my Chinese parents all over again. I’m very automatic in that once you tell me what has to be done, I figure out the how and why by the designated deadline. So yeah, all of that bullshit combined with this feedback email just caused a mini meltdown. Not a huge and dramatic one, but definitely one where talking about it to my bud K resulted in a quivering voice and tears. The great thing about K is that she groks things super quickly. She understood that multiple factors in this moment– me already being doubtful of social media and modern day communications in general, my annoyance with incompetent people across campus, my personal quasi-self destructive OCD/workaholic tendencies, my recent existential crisis– culminated into this (im)perfect storm. She reminded me that this person’s was one comment out of thousands of people who follow the page. I knew the sense in that argument, but I just couldn’t control my response today. And in turn, I was pretty pissed about having such a thin skin. Suck it up, wussy pants! By 4p, we had hit 3,000 donors. I heard the development folks cracking open the booze. On my drive home, we actually met the 4,000 mark. Just as I sat down to eat dinner, my boss texted asking what I was going to post for reaching the goal. Uh, the challenge keeps running until tomorrow morning. I can tweet about reaching the goal and then post final numbers and thanks after the campaign ends. She really wanted us to post tonight. Ok. That makes sense too. Interestingly, a few weeks back, I had specifically asked Development for some guidance should the goal be met early. Would there be a second goal? Any language? I was told the goal most definitely wouldn’t be reached until overnight. Ok, thanks for that misguidance. Fine. Did some minor tweaks and then posted. Done. As soon as I got that finished, I came across one of my dad’s emails (which I get tasked with monitoring while he is overseas– not that he doesn’t have wifi over there!) and learned that my grandfather in Maryland fell, had brain surgery, and was in a coma. WTF. So I called my dad in Taiwan, and he had found out himself via email. Jesus Christ. He doesn’t check email daily, so like we are dealing with the goddamn pony express in 2015. I dunno whether people don’t know how to make international calls, or dad is being cheap or what, but some news requires the phone!!! So when I talked with him, he was trying to get a flight back home. No flights. Had my cousin trying to help with that. And no conversations with the doctor or nurse. I mean, I understand the scramble, but before you hurry to get flights, should’t you assess the situation? I call my grandmother, and their friend Mrs. Li (who drove my grandfather to the hospital) answers the phone. She’s speaking to me in Chinese, so some of the medical stuff I don’t know the translation, but she suggests that the situation is serious. At the same time, she suggests that I NOT hurry home, reasoning that he is in a coma, and I can’t do anything for him. I then call the nurse. Kind of a different story. He fell and hit his head. They did surgery to drill a hole in his head to remove the hematoma and drain/relieve pressure. Surgery went fine. He is intubated to help with breathing, but he can breathe on his own. When they tried to remove the tube, he had a seizure which sometimes happens after head injury. He is in a medically induced coma but is stable. Aside from the head injury, all other vital functions check out fine. I call my dad with the information. Why didn’t he call the nurse directly? He’s a retired doctor, so this would have all made sense. Sure, the nurse was reluctant to talk, saying she could only reveal information to family on site. I explained that I was his closest family right now with my parents being overseas. It took some explanation, but then she talked. Regardless, my parents wanted to come home. My cousin was supposedly not finding any flights back to the US. Meanwhile, I logged into dad’s United miles account and got three award tickets for that evening. Done. Then, I got my own ticket for an hour later from when I booked. Done. Threw shit into a suitcase and Bubbey drove like Speed Racer to get me to SFO. I was the last one to board the plan, and I was sweating like a pig, with my fucking suffocating toupee on. I was going to wait til take off to remove. Well, a mechanical problem delayed us an hour with all the cabinet lights on. Then when we finally went to take off, the plane sped up, then slowed, sped up, then slowed. Back to the gate for a different maintenance. We finally got in the air at 1a. Fucking A. This was one helluva never-ending day.

Shit that REALLY Matters

I feel like I have a strong sense of what is important in life: love, family, friendship… And yet I often cannot help but obsess over work and work-related bullshit. I’m embroiled in this constant internal struggle where I value so many non-work things, and yet because of habit or self-identity or pride, I define myself through work more than through any other thing. My idealistic self is always fighting my pragmatic self. For example, I treasure connections and relationships and authenticity, but when I think about what I have to offer people and the world, I never give weight or value to the time and energy I spend cultivating, protecting, and supporting these things. For whatever reason, those qualities– albeit things I consider strengths and certainly priorities in my life– never feel like legitimate “marketable” or “technical” skills that equate to accomplishment or achievement. I still worry/wonder whether my professional career will ever amount to any kind of true “success” I had once hoped for myself.

This week, I’ve been reflecting heavily on life, death, priorities, and where people choose to spend their precious time. A coworker resigned this week to go back home to care for her dying mother. A friend’s sister was just diagnosed with advanced cancer. The famed Stanford neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi, who wrote about his own personal battle with cancer, passed away this week at 37.

In my younger years, I often struggled with the unfairness of life. Why, as a teenager, did I drive a BMW while an elderly woman near my school walked so far in the rain, lugging her heavy groceries home? As I’ve gotten older, I’ve stopped focusing on fairness. Life doesn’t give a damn about that shit. There are no conditions, no guarantees. Just because you do A, doesn’t mean B will happen. Uncertainty knows no bounds, and fate is really just a crap shoot and roll of the dice.

Knowing all these things, how should we be living? How should we be spending our time? Are we that strongly influenced by societal/cultural expectations and pressures that we must have a house and must work a job? I don’t have any answers. I just know that too many people are unhappy and miserable. And if, in our good years, we can’t seem to figure this shit out, what will happen when fate changes course?

Heavy Heart

Day 3 and well, I’m still trying my best to create new habits, like blogging every day. Fuck man, I’m always cutting it close, but somehow still managing to get ‘er done. A lot has been on my mind lately. I’m more emotional than usual. For example, I watched some video recently on social about a surfer dude and his 19 y/o Remy lookalike dog. The dog passed away, and you could see, the guy grieved for a long while. Goddamn, his dog looked a lot like Remby! I miss my little Bembo.

In other news, J has been unhappy with his profession/work/career for many months now. We are making changes, but the cycle always feels so reactionary after so much damage has already been done. Meanwhile, I fell off the health kick a while back. Now I’m on some insane snacking rampage, and my pants are getting tight. I’m not in utter despair or anything. I realize the situation isn’t dire, but shit man. Those goddamn Combos and Girl Scout Cookies. I was never much of a junk food person, but now, I get cravings. Just like the snack producers planned I suppose. Whatever. In due time, I’ll wean off and get back to normalcy. It’s just an example though where I feel like control is slipping away, some bizarre indicator of more rough waters ahead. Ah well, come what may. Probably a good exercise for me in coping and tolerance.

Starting Anew

Ok, so I got a good bit of venom and negativity out of my system with that last post. Thanks for letting me vent. I’m starting fresh now. Did you know March is NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month)? I actually participated in this way back when in November 2013. Writing a blog post every day for a month was quite a challenge. Apparently, now the promo happens every month, but there are different themes. March is news, with prompts like this. Eh, so many rules to follow. I like to freestyle that shit. We’ll see if I can up my posts this month.

As things are already, I’m still taking that social media marketing class. It’s eight weeks total, with homework due Wednesday and Sunday nights. I actually just turned in my Week 6 homework a day early. Yup, I am on that shit! I actually wanted to have all of tomorrow free, because it’s Bubbey’s bday on Monday. Hopefully, by the time he awakes tomorrow morning, I’ll have an outline planned for our day. I know, I’m cutting it close, man! 

Today was a fun day. My buds in Fremont had us over for lunch and chilling at their new house. We hung out, cooked, played with their two little boys. It’s pretty funny, because I don’t have an affinity for kids and yet lately, kids have been seeking me out! My coworker has an 8 y/o girl. She came to my office last week to sell Girl Scout Cookies. I bought 5 boxes, and then while she was waiting for her mom to wrap up, she came back to my office and sat in the chair across my desk… and just sat there looking at me. Naturally, I felt compelled to start talking to her. Meanwhile, I had some cookies on my desk, which I offered. She proceeded to eat the entire sleeve that I had just purchased from her!! 

Funny. But uh, it was weird. I was thinking to myself: “Hey kid, you know I’m not into kids, right???” I mean, I don’t hate them or anything. I just don’t feel like a natural comfort around them.

So anyway, at my friends’ house today, their first born had me all out in the rain playing with him! Granted, he and I are pretty familiar: when I wasn’t working, I hung out with his mom regularly, so he’s comfortable with me. I followed him aboard his “ship” (i.e. the park) and we traveled down a chute to check on his legions of workers in the ship bowels (i.e. we stood on the storm drain and pretended to go down the chute) . Then he had me gather sticks and leaves to make weapons. That boy. He’s quite imaginative, and admittedly, I got sucked in.

I also had an interesting revelation today. I realized that as we and our friends are getting older, more and more, we all prefer to cook and entertain at home. It’s such a big shift from our 20s, when the thing was to go out. Like I remember in Shanghai, we had these friends who were an “older” couple (i.e. in their late 30s/early 40s), and they would always host elaborate dinners at their house, with dishes made from scratch and lots of fancy wine. J and I always felt so out of place, like who the hell are these swanky people? Why don’t we all just go out to eat at the restaurant? Now, more than a decade later, we’re like those people. I’m not exactly sure what’s changed. Maybe we have a different take on value? Maybe we’ve had far too many mediocre restaurant meals that it doesn’t make sense to go out and blow money on another dud dining experience? I dunno. Maybe there’s just something more comfortable/lower key about hanging at someone’s house. Partly, I like having my uke/Jenga/karaoke/liquor cabinet all in easy reach for me and my guests!

Ok, well clearly turning in my homework gave me a second wind, and now all of the sudden, it’s 2:15a. Time to hit the sack. Still no idea what I’m planning for Bubbey tomorrow. Guess I’ll figure it out after I wake up. 🙂 After my whole tirade, turns out I’m a slacker myself!

 

The Power of New Shoes

A week or two after we’d returned from our holiday in Maryland, I spoke with my parents on the phone. Dad was fully recovered from his GI issues, and he was feeling much better. I was happy to hear a lighter mood in his voice even. On that particular day, they had just returned from a shopping trip, where dad purchased a new pair of sneakers. My parents are going on a cruise in a few months, so dad was on the hunt for comfy sneakers. Apparently, they’d never been to a Dick’s Sporting Goods, so Dad spent the next 15 minutes telling me about his latest bargain!

“Have you ever heard of the brand ‘Saucony?’ Those sneakers cost $109!!! And I saw Nikes for $160!! So expensive! But I found a pair of Sauconys on sale for $59. Mommy said the color didn’t look good, but I tried them on, and the shoes are so comfortable! I don’t care how they look as long as they’re comfortable. And for $59, I just couldn’t resist!”

Do you see how I really am my father’s daughter? Meanwhile, when I tried to get details about the questionable colors, I realized we were talking neon green. There’s a term in Chinese for women who used to sell beetlenuts in brightly-lit roadside booths. A few years back, this was one of the raunchiest things about Taiwan… beetlenuts could probably be likened to chewing tobacco, but anyway, these clear glass booths were super obnoxious with scantily clad women (girls) inside selling the goods. So people call those women, “la mei,” which means hot (as in spicy) little sister. So mom was telling me that dad’s new sneaks are like in the style of “la ge” (spicy big brother). Was she telling me dad’s new shoes were pimp shoes? I dunno, but it sounded so ridiculous. I have yet to know the exact model he purchased, but a search on Google reveals something as “spicy” as this, or something as subdued as this. Either way, this is a fashion disaster, especially considering that my father only wears dress slacks– even while vacationing. He does not own khakis or jeans or chinos. That shit is way too casual for him. Always slacks. I mean, as a kid, he’d take us to the local tennis courts, and he would play with us while dressed in his suit and tie. Granted, he was “on call,” but this is the level of formality I grew up with, which also explains why my parents hate that I wear jeans. I mean, I’m glad he’ll be able to walk a ton in those cushy sneaks, but I really might have to stage a fashion intervention. If anything, he’s going to stick out like a major tourist!

The good thing about all this craziness? Sometimes retail therapy does go a long way. I mean, all this renewed optimism and excitement– just from a pair of “spicy brother” shoes!

Learning Lessons

My visit with the parentals this time was pretty boring and uneventful. A week ago, they had gone out for Chinese buffet with some friends and since then, dad’s been battling GI issues. That’s the polite way of saying it. Don’t make me spell it out. Needless to say, he wasn’t feeling well physically. Couple that with his recent depression, and he just has no energy and no motivation. I ran errands for them and also managed to clean out my old bedroom closet, which happens to be chock full of my mom’s crap. You would not believe, but she had outfits in there from when I was a kid, and when she was in her 30s: elastic waists, crazy boxy, cropped cuts, shoulder pads… I mean, clearly the hoarding runs in the family, because as I cleaned out some of my dresser drawers, I also found my own share of junk, including old awards, my varsity letter for track, a freaking camera with 110 film still in there…

I did make some progress but not nearly enough. The next morning, I located a nearby Goodwill donation bin and dropped off an entire trunk full of clothes and goods. Honestly, I didn’t even make a dent though, because their house is massive (even by East Coast standards)…

By the time I reunited with J again at his parents’ house, I started feeling really stressed. I seriously do NOT know how my parents (and grandparents, who are even worse!!) are going to get rid of all their stuff. It’s like the constant dilemma for modern living. You buy things (sometimes really nice things) because stuff makes a home, and you enjoy the stuff. But then the accumulating just never stops and before you know it, you are buried in stuff that you really can’t take with you as you wind down in your life. When I get back to Cali, I will have to research a bunch of services: hoard cleaning services, junk haulers, etc.

Yesterday, on our last evening in Maryland, I just started crying. Earlier in the day, dad came to me and apologized for not showing us a good time. He was sorry that we’d spent all this money and time to visit, and he wasn’t feeling well– mentally and physically. It’s ok, I mean, we aren’t like guests or tourists coming to town needing to be entertained. At the same time, I do feel so frustrated, weighed down by my own mental instability and then having that coupled with the obvious misery of so many around me. I just feel overwhelmed like I can’t sustain it all.

I suggested dad talk to a therapist, and what do I get? Resistance. Sound familiar? He insists he knows what has to be done. Part of me wants to lose my shit and say, well I’m dealing with my own bullshit, and if you aren’t going to help yourself and do SOMEthing, what the hell can I do? But I keep quiet. I suggest that he recover from his current GI issue, and as soon as he feels better, tackle exercise and all the rest (better mood and lower blood pressure) will follow. Sigh, sigh. Of course all of this applies to myself, to J. I am so similar to my father, it is unreal.

Later that day, I came across an article about how NOT to deal with depressed people. Don’t tell them to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Ok, well I fucked that up also. I feel really tired of it all.

I’m hoping that just going back home and reuniting with Marty will help me regain some energy and motivation. With depression, if you do only ONE thing a day, it has to be this: Don’t give up hope.

On that slightly more positive note, I was happy to hear from my friend L the other day. He hadn’t heard from me in a while and checked in with well wishes for the holiday. I replied with apologies saying it had been an intense and challenging couple of months with the new job… but I was hoping to bring balance back into the equation. L is kinda my unknowing mentor; I feel like he always has such wisdom to share. He replied again saying something like, “I think you eat intense and challenging for dessert,” which kinda made me chuckle. I see some truth in his statement, but am I really that bad??? Ok, maybe don’t answer that. Then L said you can only find balance when you understand first what is out of balance, and stasis doesn’t necessarily equate to balance… sometimes I feel like he speaks in riddles, but my curiosity is always piqued. I hope we’ll get the chance to catch up again soon. I could use some non-preachy advice these days.

Preaching Patience

Hello from Frederick! J and I arrived at my parents’ house yesterday afternoon. We had flown in to the DC Metro Area two days prior on Christmas Eve, and usually I see my parents the day after I get in, but I made a conscious decision to hustle less this trip. Anyway, my family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, and dad was getting over some stomach issues from the weekend prior.

Since returning home, I’ve mostly been glued to the computer. The new wifi printer I bought them last year kept going offline, so that took a couple of hours to troubleshoot and get back online. Then, my father never updates anything on his computer or on any of his devices, so I did that. My father’s latest research topic for me is figuring out a place to live with no estate/inheritance tax and no income tax. Yes, he is the constant hustler. The short list isn’t looking very appealing: Florida, Texas, and Nevada. For me, I prefer they be closer to CA where there are at last 2 decent hubs with direct flights to Taipei (via SFO, LAX), but for dad, the allure of dirt-cheap Florida real estate might just be too great. Whatever.

This morning, J headed back out to help his parents with some errands. Now, I’m stuck in Frederick. I thought about contacting a lady I’d met last smmer through the Duke nonprofit program, but I just saw on Facebook that she’s in Paris celebrating her first wedding anniversary. Sheesh!

Meanwhile, my parents continue to provide fodder for the crazy reality show that is my life. My mother kept insisting that she wanted to try “Happy Time” at Bonefish Grill. She means Happy Hour, but I dunno what she’s thinking. My parents don’t drink (we just found wines dating as far back as 1990 in their wet bar), and they hate unhealthy fried foods, i.e. bar food. Still, I support taking them to try new things, so I told her Happy Hour is 4-6p. So what happens? They both skip lunch and end up caving on leftovers at 3:30p. Now they’ve gone to bed, and we’re supposed to go out for dinner at 7p. Are they still jetlagged? Maybe they’re just tired? I dunno. They did recently watch a new Chinese soap series– something like 40 episodes in 3 days, so maybe that’s the culprit???

Oh, I didn’t even tell you what my grandparents said to me on Christmas Day. They live 15 minutes from John’s family, so J and I took them out for Chinese at lunch. In the car, grandpa looked back at me, and said, “You got whiter… and prettier. What the heck happened?” Um, thanks?? What, am I supposed to be fuddy duddy my whole fucking life or something?? Later, after lunch, we were hanging at their house, and grandma says, “You became prettier. So strange!!” Gotta love the family of backhanded complimenters. Of course, who can be surprised? Last year, grandpa also asked if I had gotten eyelid surgery. Huh??

Back in Frederick, Mom has already tried to pass me 4 coats and garments that no longer fit her OR grandma. Size 10. I mean, I have no issue with people who are a size 10, but that is not MY size and has never been my size. My mother just presses all the buttons. And seriously, EVERY TIME I come home, I am barraged with this same shit. The SAME pieces of clothing even! She’ll dig up my old coats from middle/high school!! I have been trying to get rid of that old shit for decades, but my mom is a hoarder, and she will not even donate useable clothing… even if it’s out of fashion or ill-fitting. She drives me nuts. I told her, “No I don’t want any of the same clothes you keep trying to pawn off on me every time I come home. If it doesn’t fit you or grandma anymore, give it away!!” Her response? “Well we still need to keep it, because when your cousins come to visit, they can wear it.” Are you fucking kidding me? No one from the tropics of Taiwan is going to 1) visit Maryland in the winter 2) wear your 20-year-old frumpy-ass coat! Jesus Christ. I’m really getting sick of all the ancient items in this house. Seriously. This morning, they set out two jars of Starbucks mocha drinks. Expiration: 2013. Last night, we talked about drinking some wine. At least FIVE bottles of whites in the wet bar were 20+ years old. We tried to open one bottle just to see, and their cheapie-ass dollar store wine opener got stuck in the cork and then the handle broke off!! And that is the ONLY opener in the whole house!! Meanwhile, the overdue bottles are all still at the wet bar. I swear, we are being filmed for the Truman Show or something.

Hmm, while they are sleeping now, I’m going to empty out my old bedroom closet of old clothes. Then tonight, I’m going to buy a wine opener so I can empty and recycle those old wine bottles. Taking care of business!

Capacity

In my last post, I detailed a plan for getting myself out of my current funk. I intend to follow the plan, but that doesn’t necessarily stop the overthinking. Haha. On the flight to the East Coast this morning, I was thinking about my own capacity. Why have I felt so on edge these last few months? Am I feeling burdened or troubled by more factors than usual, or has my tolerance and patience decreased without me knowing?

The thing is, I don’t feel optimistic about the future. Increasingly, I find myself dreading all the inevitable things coming down the pipeline. Am I being morbid? Maybe. My grandparents are aging, my in-laws, my parents, Martin… I worry about how I will handle all of this. If I am already flipping out about the combination of work, Martin (with non-life threatening issues), my friend N, my funk, J’s funk, the goddamn NuWave oven going kaput (more on that later), holiday logistics, etc… how the hell am I going to deal with stuff when the REAL shit hits the fan? Will I discover new capacity, or will I completely lose my mind? OMFG. I really am morphing into my mother. And yes, that is a horrible, awful thing. Why? Because she allows fear to paralyze her. Fear stops her from finding solutions. Fear stops her from discovering, from learning, from living. Maybe statements like this aren’t cool to say out loud. I’m sure moms out there are taking offense. I acknowledge that parenting is a shit ton of work, and sure, let’s applaud these women for their effort. But as one of my friends once said, trying to be a good parent doesn’t necessarily equate to being a good parent. By the same token, trying to be a good daughter doesn’t equate to being a good daughter. I suppose the simplest way to say this is that my relationship with my mother is complicated.

Speaking of co-dependence, on the drive to the airport this morning, my car started shaking at high-speed. In the last week, my Honda Civic hybrid definitely started driving jerkier than usual, but I didn’t think much of it. After all, I take it in pretty regularly for the oil changes, maintenance, etc. It’s kinda just always been a shitty ride. Two days ago though, the shaking grew more intense, and I made a mental note to tell J. Well, in the holiday hustle, I completely forgot.

So this morning, before the crack of dawn, we loaded my car and headed for the airport. As soon as we got on the highway, the car started vibrating. J was like, “This is not right. Why didn’t you say anything? We should have taken my car.” Well, we had already left the house a ways, so let’s just get to the airport. The shaking intensified, but then subsided once we got to Burlingame. I made a comment that the shaking went away, and literally, seconds later, there was a really loud cycling noise and what sounded like parts flying off the car. Less than a mile from our airport parking garage, we pulled over with a blown out flat tire. So yup, there we were on the side of the highway at 6a on Christmas Eve. I’d never gotten a tire blowout before, so I was immediately thinking, shit, we’re going to miss the flight, because I dunno how to change a tire and I gotta call roadside for that shit. In my panic, I called T. J was like, “We’ll change it. They can’t do anything for us.” Sorry T, premature call! So J starts pulling all our luggage out of the trunk and moving it to the back seat. Like a total dumbass, I’m standing next to the car on the side with cars speeding by at 80 mph. I was such a useless piece. After a bit of fumbling around, I busted out the manual to figure out how to remove the damn hubcab and use the jack. Turns out, we didn’t even use the jack right until the very end, but whatever, we got the donut on. And holy shit, we made our flight with time to spare. Thank goodness for Bubbey!

Afterwards though, I was a little freaked out, you know? Like what would have happened if I were alone? I could have lost control of the car and gotten into an accident. Or I would have been stranded roadside, waiting for AAA to come help. Fucking no survival skills!!! WTF?? I mean, it is what it is. I guess now I know how to change a tire. Still, I was all disturbed feeling like a lame girl. Ugh. Ok fine, get over it.

Meanwhile, J is already insisting that this is a sign I need a new car. It’s true. From the beginning, this first hybrid by Honda has been a disappointment. Still, I was committed, plus I just didn’t want to go car shopping. You see, I had researched a car for my dad and a car for my grandfather… I was just over it. Clearly, procrastination is real. But now, it’s time to confront the issues that must be addressed. Maybe after we get back to town. Get ‘er done. The holiday adventure begins right?