Going home?

I spoke with my mom today after almost a month of not calling. With Chris’s parents in town and our travels both to Baltimore and South Asia, I didn’t think it made sense to call her, especially since I knew if I were honest about Chris’s parents being here that she’d likely be jealous and make a lot of unnecessary comments that would be unpleasant. My dad recently texted after I sent a Father’s Day gift to ask if I had plans to come visit. I was originally planning to come visit and overlap it with a work trip like I did last August, but given I recently found out that my company is trying to conserve funds and is cancelling our planned offsite in San Francisco, that canned my combined work/family trip idea. So if I were to go home now, it would have to not only be on my own dime, but I’d likely need to take some time off to take care of Kaia. My parents are not suitable babysitters.

The last time I went home, it was total hell leading up to the trip because of my dad’s uncalled for, childish, and toxic behavior. My mom only supported him and gave me endless grief when I was finally home, whether it was through making aggressive comments against me throughout each day I was at their house, or outright calling me out to tell me I had no right to defy them. It’s the same story every time I go home: I always hope that they will at least try to be a bit more pleasant, that they will treat me a little bit better and maybe do a better job of acknowledging Chris, but it’s the same crap every single time. It always gives me anxiety every time I’m about to come home, and it only gets exacerbated when I am finally in their presence. I logically know they will never change. But I also constantly get questions from relatives back home and my friends in San Francisco in regards to “when are you coming home?” and “when can we see Kaia again?” as though there’s something wrong with ME, and as though I’m the reason there is never-ending conflict between my parents and me. It’s also annoying when Chris’s parents try to feign ignorance of any family dysfunction and continue to ask me how my parents are doing and when I last saw them (and then, seem surprised that I’ve actually seen THEM twice since I last saw my own parents!). But I suppose I can see it from their point of view: Chris’s dad was a mama’s boy who told his mother literally every detail of his life; Chris’s mom was extremely close to her mom and had a good relationship with her. They’d likely only hope the same for every other person on this earth. I guess it’s always easy to shame the younger person. It’s emotionally exhausting. And then, once I leave, my mom acts as though nothing bad happened while I was at home, as though she treated Chris and me perfectly the whole time, and then eagerly asks when we are planning to come back… And always ends with, “Next time, stay longer, at least a month.” She’s gaslighting me without probably even fully being conscious of it. It’s the same stupid cycle over and over again. And I don’t want to enable it further. So maybe I just won’t go back this year. The other thing that always infuriates me is that I go through the same cycle of fury each year when I approach the anniversary date of Ed’s death, and his absence is just a poignant reminder of how screwy in the head both my parents are and how they will never change or see wrong in themselves, even after losing their own child.

At the end of the day, I believe they did they best they knew how to as most parents do, but they were just so limited in their ability to do better than what they were given as children growing up in their own toxic families. I’m hell bent on ending the intergenerational trauma that they willingly choose to inflict on me.

“When Kaia is a teenager”

I was on my way to pick Kaia up from daycare this late afternoon when on the phone with my mom. She was visiting an old friend from her continuation school days, who lives about 45 minutes outside San Francisco. My mom has not seen this friend in over ten years, which means that this friend has no idea that Ed had passed away. I’m sure she’s still saying that “Ed is fine,” and “not married yet.”

This friend had one child, a daughter, who had two daughters, both of whom are currently high school age. My mom was telling me this on the phone, and then suddenly laughed, exclaiming, “I’m looking forward to seeing Kaia when she’s a teenager!” My mom is always coveting what her seemingly better off relatives and friends have.

It’s both annoying and weird that she said this. Firstly, when we came to visit last August, not only did she almost completely ruin the entire trip, but the time she did have with Kaia, she barely interacted with her at all, and instead insisted on doing random household chores that weren’t urgent, or going on “walks for exercise” that would last over an hour. The only time she actually held her, it was when my aunt forced Kaia into her arms and sat her into a chair. How is she looking forward to seeing Kaia as a teenager when she barely sees her to begin with, and when she does have time with her, she doesn’t want to spend it with her?

Size 6 women’s socks for Kaia

Every few days, I’ll share videos of Kaia with Chris’s family and my parents. Chris’s parents are always praising Kaia, while my mom is usually giving me some criticism about something that yet again, she thinks I am doing wrong. It ranges from, “how can you give her fruit that big? She’ll CHOKE!” to her latest, “why are her feet not covered? She’s going to be too cold and then get SICK! Kaia is freezing!!”

So she decided that since she was sick of seeing Kaia’s feet naked in most of the videos in the apartment that she’d send Kaia socks…. that are size 6 women. Kaia is 15.5 months old. Her feet are probably just over 2 inches long. And my mom thought it made sense to send her size 6 women’s socks.

“She’ll fit these socks,” our nanny said, half in disbelief, half in total mockery. “Just save them for her when she turns 30.”

Continuing family dysfunction and passive aggression, with some love somewhere in between

My mom told me over the phone earlier this week that she sent me a letter, and she wanted me to let her know when I received it. She said, “you know I don’t celebrate Christmas or birthdays, but you still get something.” That’s her way of saying…. it’s still a Christmas or birthday gift, but we’re not calling it that, simply because the gift wasn’t given on those days. Okay, whatever you say. I’m not sure what Jehovah Witness loopholes exist, but she certainly takes advantage of all of them, and then some.

So my mom sent me a little note with two checks, one for Kaia and one for me. Kaia’s check was double my amount, not that I really care, but I thought it was funny. And the note began: “Dear Yvonne: How are you and Kaia?”

The note said a few other things, had some good wishes, etc. But for whatever reason, even though she does this all the time, it annoyed me for a second that she asks how Kaia and I are doing, but she doesn’t bother asking how Chris is. What, am I suddenly a single mom now? Why doesn’t she ask about her son-in-law? It reminded me of how whenever we’re in Australia or we come back from Australia, she insists on asking how Chris’s uncle and aunt are doing, but never asks about how Chris’s actual parents are doing. She does this deliberately, and it’s so passive aggressive and petty. Once, she even overtly said, “You know what I say and don’t say, so you can take the hint.”

The truth is: I don’t really care about her hints. I don’t care about who she likes and doesn’t like for whatever irrational reasons she has. I don’t have the time, energy, or desire to care or even ask anymore. I just let it go because the effort is not worth it anymore. It took decades for me to finally grasp this, and now, I truly just do not care. She’s never going to change no matter what I do or say, so I’ve just given up. And that actually has lifted a lot of weight off my chest because finally, I feel okay about it. It’s not ideal, but she just is who she is. And I need to accept her… in the small doses I expose myself to her.

If nothing else, I can count for my mom to get mad at something, or anything

I called my mom during the week we were in Southern California. She asked the usual questions, like how we all were doing, how was work, what the weather was like, and if I was planning to see my cousin who lives down here. And then, she said that my aunt who lives upstairs from her knew I was in Australia and asked if I told her.

“I may have told her,” I said nonchalantly. “I really can’t remember who I told.” I genuinely did not remember, nor did I care. This was all inconsequential to me.

“She said that (your cousin) told her,” she said, insistently. “You told him you were going?”

Here we were again, another pointless conversation about a nothing topic that I really did not care about. This is why I didn’t bother to call my mom at all while in Australia. What was the point? She would always find something to get frustrated or angry or jealous about. All we had to do was sit there and vegetate, and she’d find a reason to get mad.

“Yeah, I probably did tell him,” I responded. I still didn’t know where this was going. But the underlying message was: don’t tell anyone where you are going or what you are doing, ever.

“So did you tell her you were going, or did he tell her you were going?” she continued on.

Doesn’t she have anything else better to do with her time than obsess over something so dumb?

“I may have told her, and I definitely told him, but who cares who told what?” I said, getting audibly irritated. “I don’t care!”

If there are trigger phrases to piss my mom off, they include this short list:

“I don’t care.”

“Who cares?”

“No one cares!”

So she immediately launched into attack mode: “You need to talk NICE to me! I told your father the SAME thing. You don’t say ‘who cares’ or use that tone with me! I don’t deserve it! I can’t take it! I won’t take it anymore! I am depressed and have anxiety and am resentful!”

It was her usual rant once again, post Ed’s death. So then I said some brief things to counter her, tried to keep my tone level, and eventually hung up. I’m almost 37 years old. I don’t have the time or the patience to deal with her constant dysfunction, self victimization, or verbal abuse anymore.

Water pressure in the bathroom down under

Chris’s brother is now back in Melbourne for Christmas from Sydney. He got back on Thursday night, so the family house is packed with all six of us now for the very first time. The family house has four bedrooms and four bathrooms, so all of us comfortably have our own bathrooms to use. Chris’s dad told us that they had recently had the water pressure reduced across the house, which was most notable in the shower heads. The reason they did this was that they were advised by their plumber to reduce it, otherwise it may cause future problems for all their machines that use water (washing machine, dishwasher, etc.). Everyone in the family loves their water pressure in the shower; in fact, Chris says that one of his absolute favorite things to do when he gets back to Melbourne each year is to simply turn on the shower head in his bathroom and let the water stream down on him… because the water pressure is optimal, and he loves that feeling on his skin. When their dad mentioned the water pressure had been reduced, I hadn’t noticed it at all in the shower we used; it still seemed quite strong to me, other than the fact that the shower head is different in this bathroom given we switched bathrooms with his brother, as his brother’s bathroom has a full bathtub, which makes it easier to bathe Kaia.

Well, Ben noticed the shower pressure had changed immediately. He asked his parents what happened, and they explained. Yet somehow, oddly enough, the shower pressure in their parents’ master bathroom had not changed much, if at all. So now, instead of using his own shower, Ben is now going to continue using his parents’ shower while he is here! His dad had asked me if I had noticed a difference, and I said no.

The reason this is even a topic for me is that all it reminds me of is exactly how weak and terrible my parents’ water pressure is in their shower. In fact, I know, for a FACT, that it’s gotten weaker by design over the last 10-15 years, as my dad has not only changed the shower head multiple times, but he’s actually reduced the water pressure. He did not do that because it was too strong, but rather because a) he wanted to save money on water, b) there was a drought which advised all residents of California to reduce water usage… but hey, it ended!, and c) he insisted it was just better for the environment. It was never a discussion. He just did it and didn’t even tell my mom. No one else’s opinion or comfort mattered. It was his executive decision, and it was never going to get reversed no matter what.

The water pressure is so weak in that shower that my showers likely take a longer time there because the water feels like it’s just dripping out — slowly, painfully, meekly. Yet the few nights I actually do spend at my parents’ house nowadays, because my dad is so cheap, he occasionally will try to lightly ask me to shorten my showers. My showers are actually quite short when I am not washing my hair, and given I am only there for at max three days at a time now, it’s truly amazing that he would even ask me to do this.

The other reason this is so triggering for me is that it doesn’t seem to matter what it is, whether it is day to day living, traveling, once in a blue moon events… my dad’s cheapness seems to apply to everything. In some way, it’s almost like he wants to prevent himself from truly enjoying the experience of anything… at seemingly all costs, not just financial. He cannot even learn to enjoy the simplicity of a good shower head and water pressure. Part of me wonders if it’s just because of his upbringing, because his parents had so little and thus he had so little, and so he really grasps at every last penny he has as a result of that childhood in fear it will all disappear into thin air suddenly, despite the fact that he has more than enough now. But there are plenty of immigrant stories of families who had nothing, yet when those kids grew into adults, they managed their finances well and were able to enjoy. So the more I think about it, the more I think he just has a mental block that prevents him from enjoying or liking anything.

“Do you think your parents are capable of being happy?” my therapist once asked me.

“I suppose that depends on how you define ‘happy,'” I responded back.

It seems the older I get, the less I can give a straight “yes” or “no” answer to ANYTHING, which is so aggravating sometimes.

Because perhaps for some people, “happy” means always complaining about the most minute things; maybe it means doing the exact same things in the exact same routine every single day and not veering away from it. It can be sameness all the time. Maybe it means always comparing your kids to other kids; maybe it means always looking at people who have far, far less than you (read: are truly living in poverty) and using that as a reason to not make your own life a fraction more comfortable. And if that is the case, then there’s not much else you can say or do for them. But then… if I really wanted to know, maybe I could just flat out ask my dad the simple but very loaded question: “Are you happy?”

Well, to be honest, I am not sure I want to hear the response to that.

Total amnesia of dysfunction

With my parents, while they like to hold grudges against pretty much everyone, the convenient hypocrisy of all of this is that they always seem to forget all the dumb things they do to upset and annoy everyone, including me. And when you try to bring it up, they react with such horrid shock and disbelief that it seems that you are doing something to offend them just by mentioning that they could potentially be imperfect beings who do imperfect things. The audacity!

It’s been about four weeks since we were in San Francisco, and it’s been feeling really good not only to be in an uncluttered, choking hazards-galore space, but also to be free of their constant dysfunction. My mom called this week and said how much she and my dad have been enjoying the baby videos I’ve been sharing. Well, it’s good that they enjoy the videos because they aren’t going to get to see the baby much in person for who knows how long. And frankly, I think my dad may prefer to see videos and photos of Kaia rather than see her in person; he barely interacted with her at all other than a few funny and kissing faces.

“When are you coming to visit again?” my mom asked. “You should come back soon and stay longer.”

She always says this as though the last time I visited, it was just… simply marvelous. We loved every moment of each others’ company and found each other so damn enriching. But that could not be any farther from the truth as we all know. The constant passive aggressive comments. The uncalled for and totally out-there outbursts. The constant criticisms. She has total amnesia and seems to prefer it that way. In her head, she is the perfect mother. My dad is the perfect father. We have some perfect family where everyone gets along. That is not true.. at all. It never was, and it never will be true. We had zero conversations about anything. My dad and I barely spoke. I would say good morning to my dad, and most mornings, he didn’t even respond. What joy at us all being together!

“When Chris comes for work, you and Kaia should come, too,” my mom went on. “Then we can all spend more time together. And I can look after her.”

I reminded her that she’s not fit to be a caregiver for anyone. And she insisted she could simply “watch” her, and when she needed to be fed or changed, then I could do it. Wow, what a great offer to babysit!

It’s always going to be this senseless with my parents until the very end. There’s really no end to the delusion, amnesia, dysfunction, or tyranny.

A calm weekend – different from last weekend

It’s a long weekend for us here in New York with Labor Day tomorrow. Yesterday, we went to the Bronx. Today, we’re mostly at home and in the neighborhood. I vacuumed and cleaned a lot, cooked a few things, and enjoyed some time on the roof. I was productive, but I also felt very relaxed. I felt a lot more relaxed this weekend than last weekend in San Francisco, even though I did get to see my friends.

I always feel a little bad when I see my friends in San Francisco. I feel like they probably get a more tense version of me because I have to deal with the toxicity of my parents while there, which leads to my not being that at ease while with them. I’m not sure if they’ve ever noticed it, as no one has ever said anything. But I don’t feel like my normal self when there.

It seems like it’s impossible to be calm and at ease in the presence of my parents. Whether it’s my mom getting mad and making a big deal out of something senseless, accusing me of doing yet another “bad” thing I haven’t done, or my dad criticizing me or constantly talking to himself, nothing is ever “calm” there. He can’t help but nitpick and get mad about something when I am home. Despite the fact that he lives in a cluttered mess, he still feels the need to give feedback about things I do while in his home for such short periods of time. This time, he got mad at about how I didn’t tightly wrap up the baby’s pee diapers in the trash bin (that they were already going to take outside anyway), and then he got mad that I didn’t wipe down the bathroom tiles after showering (the long run issue here is that mildew buildup can occur). Is either the end of the world or going to cause massive problems? No. But he has to point them out anyway because when you do things that are “wrong,” then they are WRONG and BAD. If he does even half a thing wrong, it’s totally cool. And if Chris hadn’t been there, he likely would have raised his voice and been a lot more mean about it when addressing me. It’s exhausting, and I am always so relieved to finally leave that place.

When everything is suffering

“You want to be happy, and you’ve taken actions to make sure that you live a happy life,” a friend said to me this week over lunch. “You don’t want the same life your parents have, and that’s why you are cognizant of building a different life for yourself and not becoming them.”

I thought about this when I was thinking back to a week ago during my visit home. This time last week, I woke up on Saturday morning to pump in my parents’ house, and when entering the kitchen, my mom had a whole stove full of food she was preparing… at 6:30am. I had no idea why there was so much food and the need to get up so early for all this food.

“Why are you making all this food so early in the morning?” I asked her. “It’s so early.”

She had an angry look on her face, as though I was asking a stupid question. “Your aunt is having us upstairs for dinner tonight. Don’t you know?! You don’t just shove your way into a dinner like that. That’s not our custom! You have to bring something! You don’t come empty handed!”

That last part was basically like a snake hissing at me.

“I was planning to buy something today to bring it,” I responded simply. “There’s no need to make anything. I can just buy it today.”

“JUST DON’T! DON’T SAY ANYMORE!” My mom raised her voice, increasingly getting mad. “When I say something, just shut your mouth! I tell your dad this, too! Just STOP talking back! I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it! I can’t put up with it anymore! I suffer SO much!”

At that point, I left the kitchen. I wasn’t going to take any more verbal abuse that early in the morning. The whole conversation was just stupid and irrational. Plus, the tension could potentially hurt my milk output, which I didn’t need. She remained in the kitchen, “suffering” and cooking endless food that mostly would not get eaten, mumbling to herself about how she’s always suffering.

When I’ve gotten invited to meals or potlucks, I’ve always welcomed the opportunity to make a dish or bring something. I’ve never looked at it as “suffering” or “more work” that needed to be done. I suppose it’s because meals are social events, and I like both parts to them: I like the food (plus the opportunity to make something that would be fun for me to cook or bake), and I like socializing and being around people. But that’s the way my mom is: it seems like literally every single action she takes is “suffering” in her eyes. She sits in her room where everything in existence is all suffering and refuses to get out of it. She’s beyond help, and talking to her is of no use. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have kids to support or a crappy day job to go to: everything is miserable to her.

Decompressing after family visit and scrutinizing my brother’s nose

I think that by today, my body has fully adjusted to being back in New York on Eastern time. I always adjust right away, but with the baby sleeping on me plus the red-eye, this last flight was a real doozy for me. But more so, I think I am still mentally decompressing from my visit to my family. I was chatting with my therapist today, and she said that I need to work on a plan for myself where I can enter the family visit like it’s just any other day, and leave the family visit without any need to decompress. I told her that I thought that would be nearly impossible. Everything there is such a trigger for me — the hoarding, the clutter, the mess everywhere, the excessive amount of food that I know will inevitably rot or get thrown away; the dilapidation; the weedy backyard; even my brother’s old belongings that still sit around in the bedroom.

Before I put Kaia to bed last night, I was staring at the photo of Ed and me on my bedside table, scrutinizing his nose against mine and trying to figure out if we had the same nose… because if we do have the same nose, then that means Kaia also has Ed’s nose. But the more I stared at it, the more I realized that Ed’s nose was more like our dad’s, whereas mine was more like our mom’s. But Ed and I do share the same eyes. Kaia’s eyes seem to morph, and while sometimes they look like mine, other times they look ambiguous. I then tried to remember his voice, and for a split second I failed, and this deep feeling emptiness came over me. And then out of nowhere, I heard it again. I tried to remember his laugh and could not hear it, though. This is what time does. It’s been over nine years since he’s died, and now I suddenly cannot remember the sound of his laugh. That just felt so heartbreaking to me. Everything seems to fade away over time.