A home

My home is where my family is. My father, my mother, my eldest brother, my sister, my second brother, my third brother and myself. With all their wives and daughters, that is where home is. Wherever they are, that is where I feel most secure and happy and comfortable just being myself. Because wherever they are, I am most loved and most accepted for being just who I am. My home is where all the joy and laughter is. My home is where love is. 

On December 2005, my father died from lung cancer. Half of my home went with him. 

On September 2006, my mother went into coma from her second stroke attack. She has thankfully recovered but has never been the same since. The other half of my home has gone with all her sparkle that I had taken for granted in the past. 

So where is my home now?

Moving out

    I finally told someone. Somehow, my brother was able to understand. I feel better, knowing that there will be an end to the noise, knowing that peace and quiet will return. Too bad my conscience likes to hit me like a tonne of bricks. I feel extremely apprehensive thinking about how sister will react to the news. Extremely guilty thinking about how they might think I’m abandoning them.

I feel even worse thinking about how they might be right. That I am putting myself before others. That I am a total selfish bitch. That in my culture and upbringing, this decision is frowned upon, misunderstood, unacceptable. That when the time came to choose between myself and my family, I chose to preserve my own sanity. Maybe I will never know if my decision is right or wrong, but at times when my conscience threatens to overwhelm me, I tell myself that deep in my heart, I have never thought of abandoning anyone. And as long as I remember that, I’m okay.

Sister

    I have a sister. She’s 44 this year. Yes, I know, the huge age gap, which makes me wonder sometimes if somehow, in some weird parallel universe way, out of this world behaviour kind of thing, maybe I’ve misunderstood her?

NAH!!!

Because which sane woman would have the need to shout at least once everyday? Or maybe it’s just my super-sensitive hearing. Which enables me to pick up sounds up to a couple of blocks away. Either that or she’s REALLY loud. Either what? *snorts*

Every other morning, she’ll wake me up with shouts and yells at her maid. Simple-minded though they might be, how much and how often can one person put up with all that yelling (and sometimes cursing) ? I was talking about my sister. *snicker*. I mean, she must be really sadistic to want to keep the maid…so that she has someone to yell at, you see.  Then again, you could call her a masochist, for still putting up with an incompetent maid (in her opinion).

    You all must think I really hate my sister. On the contrary, I love my family. No sarcasm there. Just that I can’t stand them. Them and their narrow-mindedness, oblivious to the rest of the world but themselves, so want of attention that they have to yell at others to attract it. Oh…is that only my sister I’m talking about?

Fussy me

    I suppose I’m really fussy. Hard to please. Easily annoyed. The whole package. I keep thinking about moving out whenever Sister Can’t-Stop-Talking-And-It-Has-To-Be-So-Loud-The-Whole-World-Can-Hear-Her gets on my nerves. And that’s almost all the time. When she’s complacent enough to leave me alone, the others fill in for her. There’s Baby Annoys-The-Hell-Out-Of-Me-With-Non-Stop-Wailing-Devil-Spawn, there’s also Maid Laughs-Like-A-Hyena-Talks-Louder-Than-Sister-If-That’s-Possible. Only dear Mommy and Alice are the sane and considerate ones at home.

What sucks is that I haven’t found enough courage to actually do it. Move out. Move away. Just move. So many things concern me. Mostly what they’ll say. Growing up in a typical Chinese family environment, it’s hard not to be intimidated by the overplayed ‘respect’ and ‘filial piety’ that they keep talking about. It’s hard not to wonder if it’s really that selfish of me to want more of my own privacy, more of my own time, more of my own space. Not away from dear Mommy, but away from those annoying subjects abovementioned. And if they come attached to dear Mommy, then who am I supposed to choose……Mommy or myself?