Last night, Chris’s parents gave Ben, Chris’s younger brother, a call to see how he was doing. He’s still living at their house in Melbourne while he continues his job search, and for lack of better words, he has a pretty simple, easy life right now. He’s bickered quite a bit to me about how overbearing their mother can be, as every child does at some point, but generally I cut him off by reminding him that he doesn’t even know what the meaning of “overbearing” is. How does Ben define “overbearing?” It actually played out quite illustratively last night. This is how the conversation went after his parents were able to get through via dialing their land line:

Mum: “Ben? Can you hear me? Yes? Hi! Hi! How are you going?”

Ben: “Yeah! Everything’s fine! Nothing’s wrong! What do you want?!” (Proceeds to ramble a few other cutting comments to his mother that I can’t quite hear clearly)

Mum: “Oi! Ben!”

I never realized that saying hello and asking how one’s son is doing was overbearing and excessive. Ben says something else rude to his mother, which his mother responds with the same “Oi!” as she raises her eyebrows. They needed him to do something on his end in their dad’s office, and so when their dad got on the line, Ben barked impatiently, “What do you want me to do?! Just tell me!”

Wow. So I texted him via Whatsapp afterwards and said, “Just FYI that you sounded like a dick on the phone to your mum.” Ben, the ultimate mobile device addict who is on his phone even during meals, didn’t respond.

I thought about this for a bit, as I remembered mumbling something to my therapist about how someone really needed to see a therapist. She smiled when I said this and responded, “Everyone needs a therapist. Everyone needs someone they can talk to.” And to add to this, as I’m sure she thought this, too, perhaps everyone needs someone in their life, voluntarily or involuntarily, calling people out on things that they could improve on, or terrible habits or behaviors that are not conducive to real maturity or development. And I realized I couldn’t figure this guy out.

It makes sense to have this sort of fussy, irritable, even childish attitude as a teen full of angst, or even as an adult if you have a poor relationship with your parents as a result of years and years of dysfunction and mistreatment. But Ben’s had a pretty good life because of his parents. He’s had worldly indulgences at ages that the rest of us have never even dreamed of… because at those ages, we were so young that we didn’t have the awareness that a world outside of our house or neighborhood even existed! He gets love and attention and money from them, even when he doesn’t want it and avoids it. He even gets a roof over his head while he’s unemployed, doesn’t have to pay rent, and doesn’t even do his own laundry. He barely even has to wash a dish at home because his mother will take care of it or load it into the dishwasher. So why does he have to act the way he does with his parents? It’s as though he’s been wronged in life by them, and I can’t understand it. Maybe only a therapist if he were to ever get one (and he probably won’t) could break it down. Or perhaps a smart woman who may consider him as a potential life partner may call it out for him or even dump him because of this bad attitude. No sane, self-respecting woman wants to marry a guy who treats his mother poorly. I’m a strong believer in the idea that men will end up treating their wives just like they treat their mothers, perhaps not during the courtship phase of the relationship, but many years down the line when things aren’t so romantic and snuggly anymore.

As someone who’s come from a family of generations of dysfunction, I am always extremely cognizant and observant of how people interact with their parents — in public, in private, whenever I have the opportunity to observe it. It’s very telling when you see how people treat their own family members, particularly the two people who have given them life. And as someone who has dysfunction with her parents, I still treat my parents very well despite that because I recognize that they gave me life, a roof over my head, the education I’ve had the privilege to go through, among many other life gifts. There are sacrifices they have made to raise me and terrible things they’ve had to endure to make sure I had a decent life. I didn’t grow up in luxury, but I grew up with far more creature comforts than either of my parents could have ever fathomed. So as a result of all this, I get this visceral anger when I see people like Ben treating their parents as though he’s some ungrateful teenager as opposed to a nearly 30-year-old grown man. I can’t empathize with his constant impatience, annoyance, and attitude. It’s like attitude for the sake of attitude, which is immature and almost painful to observe. If anyone here really wanted to act out against their parents, it should be me or Ed, not Ben.

Don’t get me wrong. He and I get along really well. I look at him like a brother (younger brother to be honest, even though he’s technically four months older), and I talk to him like we’re siblings. But as with all siblings, we disagree. And with his treatment of his mum, I disagree the most and have no issue voicing it.

This question was asked to me yesterday by my therapist during our session. Why do I like them? Well, that’s an easy question to answer. The very plain and quick answer is, they are good, happy people who only have the best intentions and want to see the best in everyone else. I’m not full of shit when I say that. I really mean it. The longer answer to that question is that what makes up these very good, happy people are interests and passions that also interest me: food, culture, travel, politics, daily observations of the world that are actually valid and insightful. It’s true, though. I’m not going to like or get along with everyone who says they have these things as interests. One person could say he’s into food and cooking. A colleague I don’t like is like that. When I realized what kind of food and cooking he’s into (just food that originated in Europe? You just make chili and enchiladas?), I realized… we have nothing in common. You’re not as exploratory as I was hoping.

So I like my parents-in-law as actual people. This is why. I could go on all day about everything interesting that we’ve discussed that feels like a substantial conversation. “Do you like your parents?” she asked me. I responded, “Do you mean, if they were not my parents, would I want to be friends with them?” She nodded. “No, no way.”

Today, I met with my therapist, and I was describing to her why I was annoyed about my mom’s reaction to Chris’s parents coming last night. As I’m telling her what transpired, she cuts me off at some point and says that she’s made the observation about me that when I discuss something that is very emotional or sensitive that I laugh. That’s true, I said. In fact, Chris has pointed this out about me relatively recently. Why do you think you do it? She asked. My initial response was for external reasons, that it was to make other people feel more comfortable about a topic that was not comfortable at all. She breaks into a little smile and says, Do you think you need to make me feel comfortable? Hm. Well, that’s a good point.

Why do you laugh? She asked. And I said that in 99% of these situations, I just think the overall thing that happened is ridiculous or just plain stupid. Why would she just predict that Chris’s parents would not be nice? Or why would she get so mad and hold a grudge because one isolated time, someone asked her if she wanted to remove her hat when entering someone else’s house? These things are not a big deal at all to normal people. My therapist responded, yes, that may be the case and is usually the case, but can I say that I think you do this because it’s your way of expressing your anger, and instead of allowing yourself to feel, you try to skip the anger feeling and go immediately into the “that’s ridiculous!” laugh feeling?

Yes, it’s probably true. Now I need to stop laughing at myself as much when I describe these situations to outsiders.

I guess I’m never going to fully get over my anger toward my parents. It’s just a fact that I need to deal with for the rest of my life. But I think so far, I’m doing a pretty decent job considering how much I talk to them proactively and how often I go home and do my good-daughter duties.

Some people are flat out lying or plainly bullshitting when they say this, but I love my parents-in-law. They are so normal that they make you question whether normal is really “real,” and whether they are just some mirage that your subconscious made up because this is what you’ve always wanted for in-laws. They enjoy life for what it is and seem to only point out the most positive aspects of even the worst situations. It’s a world away from what I’ve grown up in. So you can imagine how annoyed I can get when my mother starts pre-judging their eventual meeting, which will be taking place in San Francisco when my in-laws will be traveling there next week. They will be arriving and staying with us here in New York beginning tomorrow night, and next Tuesday, they will fly to San Francisco. Chris will be going, too, with an overlapping work trip, so all five of them will have dinner together. My parents will be meeting my in-laws for the first time. And I will not be there. What an invigorating situation to be missing.

My mom is on the phone with me tonight, asking me if they are “really” nice, or if I am just making it up. Yes, because I lie all about my in-laws and how much I love them just because it sounds good. “I hope they are nice,” she says over the phone to me. “Of course they are going to be nice!” I exclaim, hearing the irritation coming out in the shrillness of my voice. “Well, we will see,” she says, doubtfully.

The problem with this type of negativity is that she’s already decided that there will be something wrong with Chris’s parents, anything wrong, somewhere. Even if this dinner goes smoothly and all is roses and blue skies, in her head, she wants something to be wrong. So she will search for things that she does not like either about them or the dinner or meeting itself. In just over a week, I will hear some criticism of hers of them. She may get annoyed that she payed the bill and they didn’t fight over it “enough.” She may get mad at the way Chris’s mom looked at her when they first make eye contact. I have no idea. But I know for a fact she will say something critical.

And if she doesn’t, then perhaps I have become a more version of my mother and only expect bad things to happen.

The dreams of Chris divorcing me seem to have no end. There’s always some drama involved — he’s leaving me because he’s bored. He’s cheated and is leaving me for another woman. He’s cheated and it’s made him realize he wants something different out of life. He laughs when I tell him these stories and says my subconscious is going nuts. He has no idea where these ideas are coming from.

I don’t know where they are coming from, either. It’s not really about the wedding from what I can see. Things are going pretty smoothly in terms of planning. No hiccups have come up yet. Our life together is full and happy. So what is the problem, then? Or maybe in the back of my mind, I am scared that my dreams will one day become a reality as they did with Ed self-destructing and dying. Sometimes, the future can be scary since we have no way of predicting every single thing that happens to us.

I always have a conflicted feeling every time I leave my parents. Yesterday, we saw them off as the cab driver took them to the Vancouver airport to go back home to San Francisco. My parents are good people at heart, even though they don’t always seem that way based on the way they perceive the world and their actions. I always feel especially sorry for my mother, who lived in very poor circumstances and many times feared for her life growing up in the countryside of central Vietnam. She came to the U.S. with all these hopes about what her future would be like, but instead, she came to experience a whole set of challenges she never thought she’d have to face: racism from the very family she married into, her husband taking his mother’s side over her’s many times, mental illness, and many other disappointments. My mom has always wanted to travel; she ended up with someone who didn’t want to travel and instead made travel much worse. My mom’s a nurturing, affectionate woman; she ended up with someone who doesn’t really know the definition of those two qualities. When I look at my mom now, she’s almost just a shadow of what she had the potential to be, broken by her own family and society in general.

The only person who can allow my mom to at least partly get what she wanted out of life is me; it’s a large responsibility and in a lot of ways is a huge weight on my shoulders. My dad’s never going to take her to see the world. He doesn’t have the patience, diligence, generosity, or desire to go anywhere or see anything, so why would he do this for her? Even if Ed were still here, he never would have taken her. He unfortunately got the “why travel?” trait from our dad. But I’m sure that was partly there because of his illness and the fact that no one ever really showed any genuine care for him.

I wear a blazer about once or twice a year. It is always at more serious client meetings because at every company I have ever worked at, suits or ties or formal wear are too stuffy, and the norm is to see people come to work wearing t-shirts or jeans or even sneakers. Yesterday, I wore one to my meeting, and because I went straight from my meeting to Publix and then to the airport, I wore it to the airport. The small thing I’ve noticed the times I wear my blazer versus times I do not is that somehow, people will always treat me a little bit better when I wear it. When on route to Florida, I was really dressed down, and most flight attendants would barely say “thank you” or “have a good day” as I exited the plane. With this freaking blazer on, everyone’s trying to greet me or say something to me.  I realize this is all anecdotal, but people really do judge and treat you by what you wear.

My dad used to complain about this when he would go to places like Macy’s or other department stores in his clothes from work (he was a glazier), and pretty much no one would give him service. But if he came in with a simple collared shirt and slacks (the rare times that happened, that is), people would rush up to him and ask him if he needed help. People treat me better when I am dressed up versus dressed down at stores, at airports – everywhere. If I just put on a little bit of makeup versus leaving the house with none on, people will smile at me more and say hi more at stores. I don’t like this, but nothing can be changed about this. This is the society in which we live, where people are just superficial without even trying to be.

I had a dream that I had to fly home for an emergency. My mother called to let me know that Ed was acting suicidal, and that he needed me to be there as soon as possible. I flew home, and on an Uber ride back to my parents’ house, I called my mom. She’s out buying food near the house, so she isn’t home with him. I went ballistic on her. “How can you leave him alone? If he’s suicidal, you cannot leave him alone by himself!” My mom gets defensive and said she had errands to run and can’t just sit with him all day. “If he gets very suicidal, then he can always call 911!” That’s probably the stupidest thing to say given the circumstances, but then again, it’s not like much of what she says in these situations tends to make sense. I got off the phone with her as the driver parks in front of the house.

My mom was walking up the hill at the same time, so we entered the house together. I immediately called out Ed’s name, but no response. I ran around to each room to look for him, and I finally reached his bedroom, where I noticed his arm sticking out from under his bed, and I screamed. I pushed the bed aside to reveal him lying with his arms and legs sprawled out, not breathing, his eyes closed. On the night table next to him is a glass of orange juice with a bottle of rat poisoning next to it. Based on the  looks of things, he had mixed the rat poisoning into his orange juice and downed it. I touched his chest to feel for a heart beat and touched his arms, and all I felt was cold as I tried to resuscitate him and yelled for our mom to call 911. But I knew it was too late.

As with the still missing Malaysia Airlines plane last year, the Germanwings plane crash was a devastation also is difficult to understand, especially given that we now know the pilot who crashed the plane suffered from depression, was suicidal, and purposely crashed the plane. Every time I see a headline about it or an article, my eyes have watered this week to think of all the innocent lives that had to die because of one man’s suffering. We can’t fully blame him because of his suffering and disease…. But can we?

I look back on my brother’s death quite often, and I think about all the ways he might have thought about killing himself that would have been “easy.” A self-inflicted gun shot wound if he could get a hold of a gun was one of them. Jumping off a bridge was another, and sadly the way he chose to go. Walking into oncoming traffic? Yes, that would be easy, but that would adversely affect the lives of the driver and whoever else was in the car. Ed was so painfully cognizant of his own pain and how it could affect other people. I’m assuming that this pilot was so blinded by his pain that he couldn’t see this the way Ed did. One of the things Ed said during a meltdown he had with my mom the year he died was, “One day, I will disappear. You won’t know where I’ve gone, so don’t come looking for me.”

I still get choked up remembering my mother telling me this after the fact.

At my friend’s birthday event last night, I met a guy who I would definitely label a creeper. I realize that sounds really judgmental, but I couldn’t help it. As soon as he introduced himself and made eye contact with me, I felt uncomfortable. He stood too close to me, got his face too close to my face, and tried to bond over the fact that we both have roots in Vietnam. To make sure he knew that I wasn’t available or interested, I started talking with another of my friend’s friends about my fiance and our upcoming trip to Japan, where this friend is originally from. This creeper suddenly became super belligerent and started interrupting our conversation to talk about completely irrelevant topics just for the sake of inserting himself rudely into our conversation. It eventually became so unbearable that I looked at my time and decided it was late enough to leave and not look like I was ditching my friend. So I left.

On my short walk home, I started thinking about how people get labeled “creepy” or “shady,” and I realize that I couldn’t really pinpoint an exact quality or trait. They tend to seem like ordinary guys at first glance, but there’s a certain unsettling vibe that these guys always tend to send to those around them. I kind of feel bad for them, but at the same time, I wonder if they even realize they are being creepy.