Love-Hate Affair
My 2 biggest love-hate affairs: With my mom and with my dad.
But the bigger one among the two is with my mom.
I hate coming back on sunday nights sometimes, because my whole family is back at my house for dinner. It just is really annoying sometimes because the time you spend together is mostly just quantity time and not quality time.
Since my grandmother had her heart surgery when I was 14, which is 6 years back, she's been living with us. ( my uncle who is currently using her flat must be really happy, because he never could get along with my grandma.) Since then, every Sunday, my family members ( mother's side) would all head down to my house for 'family day'. The idea may sound innovative, or interesting, but really, it gets stale after a while. I got really weary of it real fast.
There's the Uncle Put-You-Down... who goes on to comment on all his nephews that are supposedly not as superior as his own son. "Oh, what did you get for english/chinese/maths/GP/econs etc etc?" ( so glad I'm outta JC) or "Hmm you never exercise?" or "Hey, you've put on weight!" All said in his fakest I-care-for-you-so-much tone. Over the years, he's gotten a little less caustic, but he's still occasionally unbearable. There's also Uncle Mockery... who keeps putting his most oh-so-awful sarcastic mocking grin. At those moments I really wish I could super glue his horrible lips together so he'd never ever lose his irritating grin, and live with that visage of horror forever.
It's so weird that the uncle types in my family are so much more irritating than the aunts. Although I'm still constantly irked by their overwhelming materialism, they're much more bearable than my uncles. Or my mom, for that matter. But let me elaborate a little on their irritating antics. Every sunday without fail, the first thing they do is go to my sister's room for their little female rendezvous, then proceed to dump their bags down, and take out their new skirt/blouse/bag/wallet whatever to parade to the rest. How annoying that can be after a while!
But still, most of them are not so nasty, and are rather generous, so they're great most of the time.
Don't you guys realize that all typical Chinese Singaporean families are so alike? The familiar archetypes, Uncle Slander, Uncle Mockery, Uncle Put-You-Down, Aunt Bitchy, Aunt Hypocrite, Aunt I'm-so-proud-of-my-son-that-I'll-shamelessly-boast-about-him. SO irritating. Which is why I try my darnest to avoid any contact with my big family. not direct family, but the whole entire family during 'family day'. I mean I don't avoid them like the plague, I still like to be in touch with their lives... but our conversations cannot really go deep. It's always so superficial and conversation's always more of a chore than a joy. It is really draining mentally and emotionally. And my family always misconstrues me avoiding contact as negligence of the family. That couldn't be further from the truth. Occasionally I still make it a point to come back home for dinner so that I can still talk to them, although I don't do that too much because sometimes they irk me so bad that I have to control myself with all my might so that I don't erupt into some angsty tirade.
Then comes the horror of horrors. My MOM!
I know it probably is wrong of me to express my frustration and distaste towards my mom in such in such an explicit manner. But she is just... UGH! Today, I specially made it a point to come back early for dinner. Having not played a proper game of Warcraft 3 for eons, I just decided to hop on my dad's com to play it for a while, because the connection in my room is really screwed up. Before long, just when dinner started, my mom was yelling non stop for me to stop playing the game and to eat dinner. Being in the middle of a game, and being the game addict that I am, I told her nicely that I wanted to finish the game first before dinner. Besides, there wasn't enough chairs so I'll eat during the second round, when the other adults would be eating. She blew her top. Despite me telling her repeatedly that i needed a while to complete the game and once I finished the game I would eat with them, she was totally unreasonable and started blowing her top. I understand that she wanted me to finish eating early so that they could keep the dishes, but it wouldn't take that long for me to complete the game. Besides, her incessant yelling wasn't helping much.
In the end, my brother came by after he finished eating and took over the game. As I was getting ready to eat, Uncle-Irritant came by and passed some idiotic comment about me getting fatter and army being too nice to me. And he was judging from my face, which wasn't any bigger. It was still perfectly the same size, and it wasn't fat at all. (although yes, I have put on a little fat on my tummy! ARgh... but still I have a very very healthy weight, and I got a Silver for my IPPT, mind you) I told him, NO, my face is still perfectly the same size. That was such a dumb comment on his part. Even if he revelled in putting others down or criticising others, could he have at least come up with something better? Like me having more pimples? Or dirty fingernails from my NS work? Do we need a School For Smart Criticism and Put-You-Downs?
I was totally disgusted with my uncle's totally redundant comment. Then my wonderful mom, in her angsty tirade, relished her opportunity to join in the critique-fest, spouting out some really acrimonious words. "Aiya, someone still think he actually so good looking, actually he looks like PIG ar! So fat already still dunno, need people to tell him. IPPT already fail. Still don't want to exercise."
My immediate words in my head. "Queen BITCH OF THE UNIVERSE!"
Somehow the bible verse still rang in my head... it goes vaguely like this ..."In your anger, do not sin." I managed to somehow compose myself from the shock I got, and told her "Mom I know you're angry, but please don't say this kind of things."
Just for your information, I have a very very healthy weight. Maybe I lost my 6 pecs a couple of months ago after some sluggishness when it comes to exercising, but I still look healthy. And my mom was obviously dreaming, because I go SILVER for my IPPT and I'm too darn proud to even tell her that. Because she doesn't deserve to know.
Before you knew it, we were scolding each other. I was never the really blow your top kinda guy, so i said something like "Don't piss me off ar, next Sunday I won't be coming back for dinner again" and something like " I came back early today to see the family, but you must make so much noise". She was like screaming and yelling non stop.
Isn't at times like these when you wished you could just wring your mom's neck? ARgh.
Then again, after cooling down, I realized it was really my fault. The Bible keeps repeatedly telling us to honour our parents. And I'm trying to do that. But my mom being so unreasonable sometimes just makes it so hard. I guess the next time I'll just pray to God for strength to deal with some situations with more composure. It really is my fault for disobeying them in the first place. And it pisses the hell outta me when I realized that I was really the one in the wrong! I was going against God's command.
Having said that, my mom really needs to go for some anger management course.
Mom I know you won't be reading this, but if you are: I really do love you and sorry or causing you distress. But please be understanding towards me too. I'm only human too. And your words are most caustic and nasty. Calling your son a pig? Which mom does that?
What a way to end my weekend.
But the bigger one among the two is with my mom.
I hate coming back on sunday nights sometimes, because my whole family is back at my house for dinner. It just is really annoying sometimes because the time you spend together is mostly just quantity time and not quality time.
Since my grandmother had her heart surgery when I was 14, which is 6 years back, she's been living with us. ( my uncle who is currently using her flat must be really happy, because he never could get along with my grandma.) Since then, every Sunday, my family members ( mother's side) would all head down to my house for 'family day'. The idea may sound innovative, or interesting, but really, it gets stale after a while. I got really weary of it real fast.
There's the Uncle Put-You-Down... who goes on to comment on all his nephews that are supposedly not as superior as his own son. "Oh, what did you get for english/chinese/maths/GP/econs etc etc?" ( so glad I'm outta JC) or "Hmm you never exercise?" or "Hey, you've put on weight!" All said in his fakest I-care-for-you-so-much tone. Over the years, he's gotten a little less caustic, but he's still occasionally unbearable. There's also Uncle Mockery... who keeps putting his most oh-so-awful sarcastic mocking grin. At those moments I really wish I could super glue his horrible lips together so he'd never ever lose his irritating grin, and live with that visage of horror forever.
It's so weird that the uncle types in my family are so much more irritating than the aunts. Although I'm still constantly irked by their overwhelming materialism, they're much more bearable than my uncles. Or my mom, for that matter. But let me elaborate a little on their irritating antics. Every sunday without fail, the first thing they do is go to my sister's room for their little female rendezvous, then proceed to dump their bags down, and take out their new skirt/blouse/bag/wallet whatever to parade to the rest. How annoying that can be after a while!
But still, most of them are not so nasty, and are rather generous, so they're great most of the time.
Don't you guys realize that all typical Chinese Singaporean families are so alike? The familiar archetypes, Uncle Slander, Uncle Mockery, Uncle Put-You-Down, Aunt Bitchy, Aunt Hypocrite, Aunt I'm-so-proud-of-my-son-that-I'll-shamelessly-boast-about-him. SO irritating. Which is why I try my darnest to avoid any contact with my big family. not direct family, but the whole entire family during 'family day'. I mean I don't avoid them like the plague, I still like to be in touch with their lives... but our conversations cannot really go deep. It's always so superficial and conversation's always more of a chore than a joy. It is really draining mentally and emotionally. And my family always misconstrues me avoiding contact as negligence of the family. That couldn't be further from the truth. Occasionally I still make it a point to come back home for dinner so that I can still talk to them, although I don't do that too much because sometimes they irk me so bad that I have to control myself with all my might so that I don't erupt into some angsty tirade.
Then comes the horror of horrors. My MOM!
I know it probably is wrong of me to express my frustration and distaste towards my mom in such in such an explicit manner. But she is just... UGH! Today, I specially made it a point to come back early for dinner. Having not played a proper game of Warcraft 3 for eons, I just decided to hop on my dad's com to play it for a while, because the connection in my room is really screwed up. Before long, just when dinner started, my mom was yelling non stop for me to stop playing the game and to eat dinner. Being in the middle of a game, and being the game addict that I am, I told her nicely that I wanted to finish the game first before dinner. Besides, there wasn't enough chairs so I'll eat during the second round, when the other adults would be eating. She blew her top. Despite me telling her repeatedly that i needed a while to complete the game and once I finished the game I would eat with them, she was totally unreasonable and started blowing her top. I understand that she wanted me to finish eating early so that they could keep the dishes, but it wouldn't take that long for me to complete the game. Besides, her incessant yelling wasn't helping much.
In the end, my brother came by after he finished eating and took over the game. As I was getting ready to eat, Uncle-Irritant came by and passed some idiotic comment about me getting fatter and army being too nice to me. And he was judging from my face, which wasn't any bigger. It was still perfectly the same size, and it wasn't fat at all. (although yes, I have put on a little fat on my tummy! ARgh... but still I have a very very healthy weight, and I got a Silver for my IPPT, mind you) I told him, NO, my face is still perfectly the same size. That was such a dumb comment on his part. Even if he revelled in putting others down or criticising others, could he have at least come up with something better? Like me having more pimples? Or dirty fingernails from my NS work? Do we need a School For Smart Criticism and Put-You-Downs?
I was totally disgusted with my uncle's totally redundant comment. Then my wonderful mom, in her angsty tirade, relished her opportunity to join in the critique-fest, spouting out some really acrimonious words. "Aiya, someone still think he actually so good looking, actually he looks like PIG ar! So fat already still dunno, need people to tell him. IPPT already fail. Still don't want to exercise."
My immediate words in my head. "Queen BITCH OF THE UNIVERSE!"
Somehow the bible verse still rang in my head... it goes vaguely like this ..."In your anger, do not sin." I managed to somehow compose myself from the shock I got, and told her "Mom I know you're angry, but please don't say this kind of things."
Just for your information, I have a very very healthy weight. Maybe I lost my 6 pecs a couple of months ago after some sluggishness when it comes to exercising, but I still look healthy. And my mom was obviously dreaming, because I go SILVER for my IPPT and I'm too darn proud to even tell her that. Because she doesn't deserve to know.
Before you knew it, we were scolding each other. I was never the really blow your top kinda guy, so i said something like "Don't piss me off ar, next Sunday I won't be coming back for dinner again" and something like " I came back early today to see the family, but you must make so much noise". She was like screaming and yelling non stop.
Isn't at times like these when you wished you could just wring your mom's neck? ARgh.
Then again, after cooling down, I realized it was really my fault. The Bible keeps repeatedly telling us to honour our parents. And I'm trying to do that. But my mom being so unreasonable sometimes just makes it so hard. I guess the next time I'll just pray to God for strength to deal with some situations with more composure. It really is my fault for disobeying them in the first place. And it pisses the hell outta me when I realized that I was really the one in the wrong! I was going against God's command.
Having said that, my mom really needs to go for some anger management course.
Mom I know you won't be reading this, but if you are: I really do love you and sorry or causing you distress. But please be understanding towards me too. I'm only human too. And your words are most caustic and nasty. Calling your son a pig? Which mom does that?
What a way to end my weekend.
