Pooper Scooper

Muffinman says that depressing posts are a part of collective energy of an honest blog, so here goes nothing.

At what point do a certain set of thoughts become your identity? And it doesn't have to be thoughts, it could also include habits. A collection of habits and recurring thoughts feed into a cycle of existence (at least for me).

So when did my thoughts and behaviors lead to the personality and lifestyle that I have today? How did I get here? This is a question I ask myself a lot as I look up at the night sky on a night much like this one.

Somewhere along the line, I let the negative, critical, and perfectionist mentality that fed so much of my earlier success tear apart so much of what I should have kept sacred and fiercely protected. I guess an easy two word expression for that would be  "my confidence". Confidence is way over-hyped nowadays, so I'll use something that may border on the spiritual and lend it more weight -- "faith". Turning my critical eye inward from doing well in school to my identity and personality has left me somewhat devastated. I have good and bad days like everybody, but the intensity of my bad days are far from normal in that they are likely to leave me feeling hopeless and seeking isolation from everybody. The problem was from the very beginning that my inner critic was always rewarded when it came to things that warranted a grade; I could focus hard enough to get the desired result, and there seemed to be no downside to this approach other than a few sleepless nights.

When I shifted my focus to more introspective pursuits, the circumstances were not the same. Picking apart who you are, why you do things, and why you can't constantly be the "best" (whatever that means to you or meant to me) in every social situation leads to an insane deconstruction of who you are, and this may eventually (although rather slowly and painfully) lead you to some truth about your identity. Or it could end up wearing you down. I think that is what has happened to me, and I may be more confused about who I am than when I started this journey.

My mind now seems plagued with ridiculous notions, fears, and insecurities about everyday living, and they've only been amplified by my insane, seething quest for some uncovering of who I am supposed to be and what the world should get from my living. I feel trapped by the thoughts I can't seem to shake and run away from.

So, how do I move forward? There are a lot of days when I attempt to answer this question, and I grasp for straws--more things that can sustain my desperate mind. Sincerely though, I have no idea. I think the secret at this point may just be to soldier on and have faith that any newfound positivity wherever it may come from is something that I must absolutely incorporate into the new "self" that I am building in the wake of my self-imposed deconstruction. Basically.. stop thinking so much. And just live?

What a concept.

- Robocop

The proverbial son returns

From the moment I left work on Friday, it felt like the universe had set into motion a series of events that were aimed towards pushing me back to my family.

It started when I was interviewing high school seniors for college scholarships. Almost all the seniors spoke of the sacrifices that their parents made for them and wanting to repay that debt. Hearing story after story of how these seniors wanted to repay their parents, made me feel like a fraud as I had abandoned my own family for selfish reasons. I wondered how I could pass judgment on them for the scholarship, when I was the prime example of a failure of these filial values.

Out of the blue in the middle of the interviews, my phone vibrates from a call. As I sneak a glance at it, I am surprised to see it was my mom calling, this was the first call from her that I have received in 7 months. Not sure what to think, I silence the phone and casually slip it back into my pocket. Moments later, I feel my phone vibrate from a text. I slip the phone out of my pocket and quickly glance underneath the table to read the text. It's my mom again and she just told me that my grandfather, her father, just passed away. Once again, not sure what to think, I put my phone back in my pocket and continue on with the interviews.

When the interviews ended, I walk back home and fell asleep. I had to get up early the next day to conduct more interviews and was able to put aside any lingering thoughts I had about my grandfathers death. The truth was that I really didn't feel that much about his passing, since I was never very close to him. Some thoughts about calling my mom to comfort her pop into my ahead, but I quickly pushed those thoughts out of my head because I had to sleep.

After another round of sob story interviews on Saturday, I meet up with my friend Ellie for coffee. At this point in time, I had gotten over what had happened and decided that I would stick with my plan to not talk to my parents for a year. When I sat down with Ellie with our coffees, I told her about my grandfather passing away. In the middle of the conversation, Ellie starts crying and her tears drip into her cup of coffee. Shocked and slightly embarrassed to be seen making a girl cry in the middle of a cafe, I push some napkins to her, hoping that no one notices her sobbing. Annoyed, I ask her why she's crying, after all, it's not her grandfather that died! Ellie tells me that she is imagining my mother's pain of losing her father and having a son that doesn't care. Ellie begs me to call my mom, but I refuse. "This is none of your business, it's not your family," I tell her, "just leave it alone." Ellie responds "I can't be friends with someone like you." We part ways from the cafe, with me pissed off that Ellie dared to use our friendship to force me to call my mom.

Sunday morning, I wake up feeling groggy from a night out with friends. As go about my day, Ellie's words haunt me. I start feeling like a terrible person for reaching out to my mom. "Where did my compassion go," I wondered to myself. As I laid in bed with the clock approaching midnight, the guilt was just too much and I knew what I had to do. I grabbed my laptop and wrote an email to all my colleagues, telling them that my grandfather had passed away and I was going home to spend time with my mom. After sending the email, I laid in bed more awake than ever, this time not from guilt, but nervousness over how my parents would greet me. Conflicting scenes of my mom welcoming me with open arms and rejecting me at the door played out in my mind. 

I got very little sleep that night, next thing I know, I am sleep walking myself to the Caltrain. On the train ride down to San Jose, I get more and more nervous about how my mom will greet me. "She has a right to be angry with me," I thought to myself, "hell I'd be pissed at myself." The cab ride to my parent's house seemed to drag on, I could feel my heart beating as I got closer to my parents' house. When the cab turned the corner, I saw that both of my parents' cars were out and when I rang the doorbell, no one was home. Feeling a bit relieved, I walked to the Almaden Roasting Company to wait for my mom to come home. An hour or so of sitting around at the cafe, I figured it would be dumb to walk all the way back to my parents' house and have them not be there again. My willingness to surprise my mom was outweighed by laziness so I called my mom. The call went straight to voice message and I left a quick message that I had come back home and she should call me back as soon as possible.

When my phone rang with my mom on the caller id, I was once again nervous. "This is the moment of truth" I thought to myself as I picked up the phone. It turns out, I didn't have anything to worry about, because my mom was over joyed to have me home. She was so happy, that she started crying on the phone. I felt relieved and touched, even after what I had put her through, my mom didn't hold any grudges. She was just glad to have me back.

Walking into the house and seeing my mom face to face again was an overwhelming experience. For the first time, I could proudly tell my mom about my job and how much I was making. I felt so much more mature and respected now. However, those feelings of pride faded quickly and were replaced with guilt and shame, when my mom started telling me about how much she worried about me during the 7 months that I cut ties and how she cried every weekend I was gone. I felt so terrible for putting my mother through such an ordeal, that I cried for the first time in a decade. My mom and I talked and cried till my dad came home and though he didn't explicitly say it, I could tell he was happy to see me back too. After such an outpouring, I can't believe I ever doubted my parents' love for me. I can't believe I thought they wouldn't take me back.

Writing this blog post nearly a year later on mother's day got me asking if it was necessary to so drastically cut off relations with my parents. Was all that pain that my mom felt necessary? The answer, I have come to conclude, is that it was because I needed to show my parents that if they didn't respect me that they would lose me. There was no other way to show that than to walk away and to refuse to take part in the circle of disrespect that I was raised in.  

I had to completely destroy my relationship with my parents before I could rebuild it to what I wanted. Now, I finally have the kind of relationship I always wanted with my parents. This might be the closest that I have ever been with them.

Unfortunately, relations with my sister have become non-existent. So this family rebuilding project isn't quite complete yet.