Volcanic Epiphanies

Nearly a month ago I was flying over Iceland...gazing at the beautiful, placid ice sheets thinking...

how on earth can this little country affect the world?

ha ha ha. the joke is on all of us.

*please be warned that this will be a long long LOOOONG post about family, because, well, this is my pensieve and i really REALLY need to relieve these thoughts in order to study/focus better*

these last four months have been rather quiet, with internal change really marking the hour. being reflective is the operatus modi, and by golly, have i really really absorbed it like a sponge. i realize i have been going about my new diet, and my lifestyle, but i doubt i actually delved into why i needed this sudden, almost explosive change...

as many of you may have surmised, i had a brief sojourn in california a couple of weeks ago...and it was...well...interesting.

for the first time, i noticed how not normal life is back there with the parentals. the family. the culture. it was like stepping into an extremely small, confined box...but knowing that I was stepping into said small, confined box. see, the difference this time was that I went back knowing it wasn't "home" anymore...rather, just another place to hang out and "relax". family...it's not home anymore.

it's not home when i constantly worry about what la mere will say in the first five minutes of meeting her. it's not home when every conversation with her is like walking on egg shells. it's not home anymore when in spring, when the ice is supposedly melting...i'm still walking on it trying to avoid any cracks...

first it was my weight. then it was my personality. then it was my skin color. then it's why i don't have a boyfriend.

my mother. my very unhappy, depressed, repressed mother. the one person in the world you are meant to trust...is the one person i can't talk to about anything. i fear how she will use my words against me and worse yet, i fear how i will react to said words. i thought i built a shield...i really did. when she started wondering out loud as to why i didn't have a boyfriend...here's what she said:

"you don't have a boyfriend because you hang out with really pretty, beautiful girls. if you hung out with ugly girls, you might have a chance"

had this been a year ago, i would have actually believed her. wait hold on, i did believe her for the last 22 years. I mean, what gives? Every conversation…heck every five minutes, the dialogue or rather, monologue was about beauty and thinness. That’s it. Nothing else. It actually got frustrating at one point when all la mere could talk about is how unmatched couples on Platinum Weddings were based solely on their looks. Come on. There’s more to life that just the externals…people need to be compatible on a more intimate level. Not just sexually, but mentally as well.

Of course, now, if I disagree with her…which I started doing after like 24 hours of hearing non-stop diatribes on how family members were gaining weight and how beauty is tantamount to well, life, la mere plays the victim card. She gets quiet and pretends to be the meek one to make me feel guilty for what I said. Not happening this time, I know better. I think she understood that the day I left.

I told her about the Russian accidentally last December, and since then outright lied to her saying that I have lost contact with him. That’s how this whole boyfriend thing came about. She knows it upsets me a little to talk about it, and that’s why she never fails to mention him. The woman is not only a master manipulator and a great victim-card player, but also knows how to pour acid on sensitive spots. She is excellent at massaging salt onto open wounds…she will tear open the bandage if she has too, but she takes pleasure in doing this. In her unhappiness, she takes pleasure in my pain. Schadenfreude.

It’s okay for to criticize everyone…especially her own daughter. But when the tables are turned, la mere starts, again, acting cute and childish in order to regain control/power of the situation by downplaying the seriousness of any serious allegations directed to her. This only with me, and my God it’s frustrating. See, the moment I landed…apparently, I lost weight but I am not thin. Thanks. I usually act like a kid because well, you would think that closeness would allow that kind of behavior…but apparently, I need to start acting “mature”. Like a 23-year-old. See normally, I’m pretty good with critique, especially constructive criticism…but when the only thing I hear from la mere is JUST negative comments that aren’t just critique’s but insults disguised as jokes…I take it personally. So now, it’s not just my looks…it’s also my personality. When I called her out on this, but openly asking her what a person my age should act like, she couldn’t answer. Fair enough, you tell me this but starting acting immature yourself.

I thought the matter was dropped. But everytime I talked to her, it came back to beauty, thinness, and my maturity level. Every fucking conversation. But then with another, very familiar but very annoying twist: If I tried to be mature with her, and attempted a serious, adult like conversation to tell her I don’t appreciate being told off constantly about my “weaknesses” to put it mildly or that I can take criticism but the “insults and the jibes and the bitter/hurtful/mean comments that follow” are unnecessary…this is what happens…

She starts acting cute and tells me how much she misses this argumentative side of me. She starts telling me how much she misses “her pet dog that barks all the time”, and how I think too much of things, and how imagine things being worse than they really are. It’s the childish, cute method that bothers me. It’s really condescending because it downplays the seriousness of what I have to say. But more importantly, calling your 23-year-old daughter a pet dog…is highly inappropriate. I keep thinking that maybe I am exaggerating the inappropriateness of this whole thing, but it’s not. It’s definitely unhealthy and it’s a problem.

And should I pursue my line of thought and still attempt a serious, non-confrontation talk with her, I get this: “oh Belle, you take offense to everything I say, I can’t say anything anymore in this house”. And when I get angry at her for not listening, at which point it becomes heated on my part because I can’t for the life of me remain calm, she says…rather placidly, almost an exasperated voice… “oh belle, here we go again. I think we hit a record this time”. Record being how soon it was till we reached an argument. To which I reply “it’s not me, it’s you that needs to change. If only you listened, but you don’t.”

At this point, I had visions of various methods of hurting and/or silencing her just so she can listen to me.

And that’s when I got scared. Frightened even. I can’t live in that house…for fear of doing something that highly highly dangerous.

For years, all I wanted was her approval but I never ever received even a smidgen of it. Her “compliments” are discrete derisions, attempted at making me believe that my accomplishments aren’t really that great. Now that I think about it, it seems as if she was always settling for my achievements as opposed to actually being proud of them. Like whatever I did was never good enough, but since it’s the BEST I could possible achieve, she might as well take when she can get as opposed to well, being happy with what her daughter is doing. I am never good enough…and I realized that I put my life on hold trying to make her happy. The weight loss and the academic perfection that in her eyes, I will always be a mile off.

In that household, the small amounts of “approval” or “making parents proud” thing I ever received was on the academic and the beauty front. That was and is the only measure of my success…which isn’t really success because “I’m trying” but “average, 80% people can only reach so far…going beyond my means and hoping for success is like an ant reaching for the moon”.

La mere is depressed and unhappy with her life. She is alone. Her sister, husband, and mother have no qualms making her feel like she is shit. She lives in that kitchen, heck has all the tools money can buy…but lives with a husband who is married to his work and his work is his marriage. The marriage has been on life support for nearly a decade, with the two of them living in separate rooms…and merely performing the functions of wife and husband as if it were checking off boxes on a to-do list. But since la pere is the bread winner and obsessed with work (he works at home as well or watches the several cable news channels as soon as he gets home)…he controls the money supply. My mom sees some of it, but not nearly as much as her daughter who spends recklessly. I spend recklessly. Love isn’t something you just say as a speech during an anniversary dinner, PERE, you show it. you shower it. it’s not emotional neglect and ignoring your family duties…it’s actually spending time with your wife and daughter. It’s actually connecting with your daughter for more that 45 minutes per trip home on topics that aren’t career/job/academia related. My longest conversation with la pere that’s non-academic/job related lasted 5 minutes. It was about asking what was for dinner and about current events.

I don’t even care for la pere anymore, and as of this trip…for la mere either. I felt guilty for years feeling this way…but this year I realized, for a woman who so freely insults her daughter, and vents/lashes out on her daughter and expects to be loved back…well you have another coming la mere. This behavior officially qualifies for emotional abuse.

Being educated, and having the internet, and the help of an awesome, totally supportive friend who see this as a problem…helps…a lot.

My father is a cash machine and my mother is ball of negativity hiding behind the veil of cultural values and religion. I don’t hate them, but I don’t love them either. I feel nothing if they were to die. I don’t want their money or their property. I am perfectly fine without their interference.
I lost the fight the moment I was born: I am not fair at all and I am not a boy. apparently, not having the fair y gene has left me handicapped. however, when people tell me that i am beautiful...and when friends of friends have remarked on this positively...i started to think. perhaps, just maybe, la mere is...wrong.

(side note: look, i am no feminist. beauty means alot to me, but i know it's not the only thing that's important. when i look at a guy, i need to be physically attracted but also...well, need to not be bored. having said that, i invest a disproportionate amount of money on skincare and makeup and clothes etc. so think what you will, but I care a lot about my looks )

I used to rewind my thoughts every time I thought there was something fishy with the way la mere…just brushing it off as what mothers do. That it’s normal and that I am making a mountain out of a molehill. But. When years ago by, and the same argument comes up again and again and again, albeit more frequently and consistently as I get older, I’m starting to think that I am the one who’s perfectly rational and that la mere is just acting out her frustrations on me. The only person in the world she has any power over. At least, that’s what she thinks.

But what’s scarier is the panic and the claustrophobia…that leaves me gasping for air everytime la mere tries to subtely control me. Everytime I convey my interest and desire to stay in London…i.e. away from her, her response always has a tone of “awww how cute, she is trying to run away. Well, it’s cute she thinks that way, but it will never obviously happen. She can’t do it, she needs me. And my approval. I am her mother”. After several years, I’ve understood that much.” It’s like she needs me to be there for her just so can vent out on me….like I’m a punching bag. A scratch post. Her pet dog.

That’s when I start gasping for air. I get scared that I will return to that life…only to realize that I am in control of my life. Money is the only thing connecting me to them, and I can tell it’s scaring her that I am soon entering the work force. With her desire for me to just continue studying, it really means… “you will stay connected to us for monetary reasons, so you will listen to us…”

It scares her that I am becoming independent. She never had much choice growing up, with a culture that forced her into marriage…so it must be painful watching her daughter, at 23, living on her own and making choices on her own…

She resents me. I know somewhere deep down loves me, but I feel like she loves me because it’s her duty as a mother to love me. As I get older, it seems as if she is resenting my independence and my education more and more. Firstly because my father is pushing me the way he never pushed her, and secondly because I get to see the world as opposed to watching it on television.

So now she is trying to impede my growth, because I think she is jealous. She is abusing her power as a mother, just like she did when I was 12 and sent me to school with shorts with extremely hair legs…to face the ridicule of my peers.

I got that when apparently, the cousin I don’t talk to is at marriage age and just said no to a really “good” proposal. The whole family (mostly the females i.e grandma, another basket case ) are emotionally blackmailing her into marrying. Their excuse? It’s “our culture”. Fuck that shit.

Your marriages have spectacularly failed, so why punish your daughters with the same predicament?

Control. They never had any, so controlling daughters…watching daughters wreathe in the same pain that they went through justifies their lack of choice/power in life. Like the cycle of life: “we faced it, so our daughters need to face the same thing…how can they get away when we couldn’t?”

It’s like…study well, get the good resume only in so far as to get a good “marriage catch”…then you’re done. Then you just have follow the conveyor belt path like everyone else, produce babies…and that’s the pain of life.

Not once did I hear how fun life could be, it’s always…how painful it is. And because la mere is religious, apparently, according to her belief (which she is trying to instill in me), reaching stardom or supreme financial success is impossible…because that would mean too much gross ego and not enough purity…okay. Yea. What religion stops someone from following their dreams? Realizing their full potential? Another form of control I fell under through university.

Sorry I have to get this all out.

This vicious cycle of bitterness, control and resentment…much less competition permeate in this family and I want to get out of it. Thanks to this family, I will always be fearful of my weight …and ultimately, what I eat. Well-adjusted? Not in the least bit. I have all this unresolved anger and resentment towards la mere, I forgot to live my life. To have boyfriends and to experience the life outside my unhappy thoughts towards her.

No boyfriends. Think about that for a second. I always thought I was never good enough for anyone because I was never good enough for her…and all my “relationships” or interactions with boys have been to seek approval without delving into sexual relations…because in our “culture” premarital sex is totally inappropriate. I don’t even know why but it is. I guess in that respect la mere is afraid that I will do this…and my chances at arranged marriage are destroyed forever…which is why the few times I have talked to her about boys, there was always some stupid reason the boy wouldn’t like me (not smart, not pretty, too fat, too young, too old…the list goes on). I listened to this. I BELIEVED THIS. Control through emotional abuse. Cheers for a lifetime of scarring you bitch.

I NEED TO GET OUT OF THIS. And I am. I will waitress if I have to, but I am leaving this family forever. I can’t deal with the envy driven bitter comments, the constant feeling of being a failure…and generally, the feeling of not being good enough to standards that are impossible anyway.

I am more than just a score. I am more than just my looks. I am not an extension of my parents…I am my own person.

I deserve to be happy. I have the right to feel good about myself.

Life can be painful, but it can also be blissfully wonderful. I have the right to experience this. I should haven’t to live in fear all the time.

The clean lifestyle...the goal to only living on pure, unprocessed food is a result of all of this. I need to break free, I need to cleanse...and I need rebirth. If weight loss happens, it happens...

Thanks la mere, you’ve done a wonderful job.

Now fuck off.

Belle

ps: thanks for all the comments. without sound too egotistical, i am glad i am helping you lot! always appreciate thoughts/inputs, and forgive me for not returning the favor anytime soon...i am reading your posts! you have to trust me on this!

pps: I am feeling so good now! I got it all out!!!

ppps: the Russian here last weekend. He didn't call me to let me know he was coming. It's officially ended before it even began. It's been six weeks since he texted, and nearly four months since I last saw him. =( Why do I keep thinking that he will text me or that he is thinking of me? Comrade, our mutual friend...the Russian's good good friend...keeps mentioning the Russian when he plans on returning. I keep foolishly hoping that it's his way of saying that the Russian felt bad for not texting since he didn't know I was in town as he thought I was still out of town and that through comrade, he is voicing his interest in seeing me. False hopes. If a guy wants to be with a girl, he will climb mountains...and this isn't climbing mountains...no matter how matter how many times The Empress, The Star and The Seven of Swords keep showing up in reference to the Russian. I need to let go.

ugh

Belle, again. who else?

x