perceptive projection

Sometimes it is so hard. The stress, the fear, the grief, the anger.

It is all too much.  And frankly I don't know how far I can last.

It is taking not only emotional toll but also physical toll on me.  

These days, not only I have constant headache, but also when I am particularly stressed out thinking about everything, where the money comes from to pay his tuition, to pay rent, to pay electric, etc, especially since I am a foreigner here, I have no one other than my brother who depends on me, and if I lose everything I have no place to turn to which would take me/us in and this scares me the most. When I think about all this my head feels so hot and burning and my nose would start bleeding then. 

And sometimes my whole body feels like ants are crawling around then soon my legs get paralyzed that I can't move them at all, also the left side of my body got weaker.

I rather that I really get a massive heart attack and be done with everything.

Instead being this unhappy, this scared, this miserable.  

The day began by me ignoring her sms, it had come to the point that I was really sick reading the sms, more than hundreds in two days, all of which telling me what to tell to brother, the reasons, yada yada yada.

But because I was ignoring the sms for almost a day already, she sent me another ten sms between the hour of two a.m. and three a.m. with the last one she demanded why I hadn't been answering my sms.

I finally burst out and replied to her that she must've been kidding me with all the sms and sending it at such ungodly hour and all about the same subject, I told her I got her point already that she didn't want him to go home before he finishes his degree and I'd tell him so, but shouldn't she sms these hundreds sms she sent to me to him instead? After all what she was telling me had a lot more to do with him than me.

Mother realized by my tone of my sms that she had pushed too far, I am very rarely talk to her impolitely or even slightly rude, so she apologized, but then on the same sms she was apologizing she continued on with her rant then closing it by telling me very honestly that no, she doesn't want to sms directly to my brother because he would not listen and would just ignore whatever that she had to say whereas my brother listened to me hence she smsed me.

When I read that sms, the sincere apology closed with the same thing she was apologizing for and honestly admit that she chose to pester me instead of my brother eventhough it was him she had problem with, from being pissed I could only laugh with resignation and shook my head.  

You got to really hand it to her.  

She drove me crazy. But what could I do really, after all, she was my mother. 

Several times, in some of our major disagreements, Omega commented that I knew no bound, had no measurement whatsoever in regards of when to stop, I'd keep pushing so hard in hurting someone, down to the last possible shred I could tear, only then I'd be satisfied. 

He made that comment more than one time, each time after our major major fights, and they were enough to make me took a step back to ponder and take a stock of myself to see whether there was some truth in what he said. I found the answer to be disturbingly yes, although luckily enough so far it happened only when I am badly angry and want to lash back. 

I kept wondering why I was like that because I wasn't used to be that way.

Then I realized creepily I was like that because Mother was like that and unconsciously somehow I picked it up during my stay back home between 2001-2005. For the life of me I had no idea why I picked it up when consciously I knew it was not an attractive trait to have, when it was actually another thing I really disliked in her.

Mother knew no bound in every way.

For example, I got more than 100 sms from her alone today. All day, all night, sometimes I got five sms in a matter of two minutes, some of them came around two a.m., three a.m., three thirty a.m., five a.m., non stop starting from midnight last night to midnight now and still not stopping. The sms, themselves, pertained, guess what[?], what I should say to the kid, what I should do, and all the reasons why I should do/say to the kid the way she wanted me to.

She didn't sms my brother once. Not once, whereas it was actually it was his business that she kept pestering me about. But of course she didn't sms him because she knew he'd shut her out, he wouldn't listen no matter how many sms she'd send directly to him. He'd just ignore it.

So, she tried hard to convince me to manipulate my brother on her behalf, and she was trying to manipulate and even actually harassing me to do what she wanted me to do. And she kept doing it even after I told her very clearly that I am not interested to get involved between the relationship between the kid with the parents.

She [you got to admire her persistent] declared to me that no, she insisted that I should be involved because we are "family". I ignored her sms after that. For me, they are my family true because I had no other choice, being born into such family. But I didn't move continents away from them for no reason.

However, despite that I ignored her sms, she still kept sms-ing me even now, a day and a half later.

And I knew her, once she was in this mood, it was as if she had no brake whatsoever and just let whatever emotion that she felt, all the words, all the action came out, like unreigned bulls let loose to stampede everything during a bull run event.

She had always been like this, very emotional with very little self-control to reign the emotions back and to hell with the carnage from the aftermath.

And I disliked that side of her strongly. It was so ugly and so cruel.

Only to find out I had that very same personality, albeit more contained and only on one specific emotion.  

Yikes. 

I told Omega to keep remind me when I resorted to that, if it happened then he should put a stop to it regardless. I truly didn't want to be like her, inflicting scars and wounds without regrets just because she felt justified.  

Mother kept sms-ing me about brother. Saying that he is not allowed to go home until he has fully transferred to another college. That I should talk to him to stay. That he has got to have his bachelor title from America [have to finish his schooling here in other words]. That I have to try hard to make him understand this.

I could only sigh when I read all these.  

First of all, he was not my son.

Secondly, even if he were which means I would have the most right to tell him what to do [and apparently which my parents exercise fully from he was a baby until now], he should still allowed to make his own mistakes only then he could learn to develop his own personality.

Throughout the years, ever since he was born, I kept telling my parents the way they raised him wasn't right. They protected him too much. He couldn't even fall because there would be someone there already to catch him, this of course was a metaphore, but also quite literate. And it had done him harm more than useful. 

I had always been of the school that you better learn how painful it is to fall very early on, because when you are little enough the pain heals faster and you forget about it quicker, as you grow older, all the pain you feel last long, physical ones and emotional ones.

And the more my parents protected him from pain, the more he'd be hit hard when it did come. Being human and mortal, they could not protect him forever after all. The best thing they could give him was to give him the chance to develop skills he could use to protect himself and survive well in society until the day he die. 

Then there was also the matter of Mother's way. I really really dislike this side of her. The manipulative side. Knowing that she was unable to control him that whatever she was saying couldn't get through to him, she then tried to use me to manipulate him. Like she used my aunt and everybody else, even Father, when she tried to manipulate me to do what she wanted me to do. Mother never played fair [unfortunately I inherited this trait of her to a degree although luckily I inherited Father's sense of honor to temper it].

And being used to manipulate my brother made me not sympathetic at all to her cause, instead it made me resent her to no end and angry.

My parents should really stop be such controlling freaks and read Khalil Gibran's poem titled "Children" 

I feel so exhausted. Emotionally drained.

I feel bad for my brother. If he does go home, it means he'd have wasted two years and about $20grand of hard work from me. 

On the other hand, I can't really be angry with him because for the first time, he has his own thoughts and decision aside from what has been dictated by the family, something that I've wanted to see in him. I want him to be free, to live life without obligations, to be someone who is successful by his own right and a happy one.

It is just that everything is so exhausting.

The weekend was spent with brother mostly. Eating at Todai. at Sapporo. at Ihop. Went to wall mart. to church. In between we talked. Heart to heart. Or more like he talked and talked and talked. I listened.

About his true feelings about being here in the States. How our parents' situation is actually affecting him. How he sees himself, his future. That he, like me, is one unhappy camper although for different reason.

My brother and I are truly different as any sibbling from the same parents can be. We both inherited both of our parents' traits completely in all their differences. What I got from Father, he didn't get, what he got from Mother, I didn't get. My personality is strongly like Father's, tempered by Mother's. He is vice versa.

I am very independent, a true first born, and very academic, jaded, a skeptic and cynic. And although I have elite taste but I can rough it up when I have to. I am also aloof yet I can be very charming when I feel like it. I care little for what other people say in general and whenever possible I make my own rules. I don't like to shop often, but when I do I always aim for the most expensive stuff. Most of all, I prefer to live anywhere, as long as it is outside our country.

My brother is very dependent from a lifetime of being sheltered, a true last child, and doesn't like to read other than ads, innocent. He, like Mother, loves shopping, would just buy about anything that he likes. He is also very shy, and like Father, has a touch of arrogance, meaning he doesn't know how to bend when he has to, always thinking that he doesn't need anyone. He also likes to show off material things. He cares a great deal about prestige and cares about what outsider/society says about him/our family. And that he loves our country, he is like a dying fish that suddenly gets water over there. 

And to come to Manhattan, when our parents' financial situation is as it is at the moment, from a background where he doesn't have to lift a finger for anything because there are maids and drivers to run errands for him, lives in a huge huge house with aircondition runs in every room,  nice cars to go anywhere, then suddenly came to NYC, to a situation where the apartment doesn't even have an ac, where you have to walk several blocks to do laundry, and take the terrible subways to go anywhere, we are not mentioning the house jobs that he has to do. 

I can imagine his shock from the contrast.  

Even I, myself, have had a hard time adjusting how bad the living standard in NYC is despite the price you are paying.

And yet, he has to come here, stay here, study here, at least until he gets his degrees. With our parents' situation, there is no guaranteed that they'd be able to give him some capital to start a business someday or even a meaningful inheritance. And without such, staying in my country without a degree from America or Europe's ivy leagues would amount to future suicide, especially with his personality, developed after being sheltered for a lifetime. The country is not at all gentle, the situation there is truly survival of the fittest and if you can't play that game and hold on your own you'd pretty much not survive.

But a degree from America or its Europe counterparts would help him at least to get a meaningful job at some international companies that have branches there and command a decent salary, at least the same with Indian or chinese white collar workers.  

He is miserable he said. Lost. Confused. Angry. Hurt. Sad. The struggle and the grrowing up that he has to do, so fast, after still being sheltered by our parents right up before he left for the States, and in a country whose culture and people he feels like an outsider to, the way I did back home. 

Hence I do understand how he feels. And feel truly bad for him, especially when he cried in front of me. I've seen my brother cried three times in his teenage life, two were from fighting with me. And today.

But I can't tell him what  to do. It is his future after all.

I just tell him to think hard what he wants to do for his future, free from the dictates of our parents and my involvementt and just listens deeply into his heart.  Then I tell him the only thing I can tell him, 

life is so very short. he better choose something that would make himself happy.

If only I could do what I preach.

In front my brother, as I listened, I was the potrayal of calm and benevolent, understanding. The good older sister.

When I talked to Omega much later in the evening, I wept. The tears, once they came, wouldn't stop coming. Like Atlantis, my tears, too, drowned my grief. 

Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.
- Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979

Tell me, Father, why is there so much pain and darkness in my soul?
- Mother Teresa to the Rev. Lawrence Picachy, August 1959

- Quoted from Time Magazine.

When I read the excerpts from her personal letters, it made me want to weep. That is where I am at.

What's funny is that my planned long entry touches some parts of what in Mother Teresa's letters then I stumbled into that article. 

so.

a year older.

:sigh: 

Today the kid went to apply for SSN. And was refused because of his F1 statue. It is possible but there is certain ways you have to follow to get the SSN and it'd take some time and he wants it quickly.

He is very disappointed which made us had a heart to heart talk.  

And also I told him, if he really wanted it, he shouldn't give up so easily. He should try harder to get it.  When there is a will, there is a way.

My little brother.

He is so gosh-darn young. 

...

fashion designer: And Bir Bintang, of course.

[henceforth known as fashion-d] 

chinajade : But you know I don't drink alcohol these days.

fashion-d : Ah, yes. Your lethal allergy.

chinajade : Yeh. *disgruntled tone*

fashion-d : How about marijuana? Or did you join us in Bali? I completely forget.

chinajade : Heh. No. I don't do drugs. Ever. In Bali,

                 I only watched you and mr. cigar did it.  

fashion-d : and you also don't smoke.

chinajade : ....

fashion-d : You are so wholesome. The most wholesome girl

                 I've ever known!

chinajade : [momentary lapse of speech then bursting out to laughter].

chinajade : You got to be kidding me!

fashion-d : I am serious! You are always pleasant and charming

                and gorgeus without the trappings or bad habits. Wholesome!

chinajade : If you only know, -d, if you only know. Wholesome indeed!

Moral of the story:

Don't judge a book by its cover.