While it would be great if my entire wider family were functional and we all got along, that is simply just not true. You know it’s not true when you call your mother after work, and she asks you, “Did your Auntie X call you lately?” You answer no, and she says, “Good.” What kind of response is that?

It’s as though every time a family member contacts me, my mother hates it. She doesn’t want anyone reaching out to me or telling me anything. She especially doesn’t want me to tell them anything about my life, like where I have traveled to, what restaurants I have eaten at. Why? Because for some reason, all of those things seem negative to my parents because they can be spun in such a way that supposedly makes me look bad or snobby or careless.

My mother said to me yesterday while getting angry at me for getting exasperated at her, “You always think that your mom is so negative when I am trying to be positive. You are the negative one.” I think both of my parents define psychological projection.

I’ve realized that I’ve found myself silently fuming over my parents and all of their negativity and flaws this week. In the last year, I’ve had moments or hours when I would go over and over in my head why they are so miserable and negative when I think about my brother and how he isn’t with us anymore, but they would eventually pass. This week, it seems to be a reoccurring thing that comes and goes constantly throughout the day. When I least expect it, I am getting more and more angry with them. I am remembering one event after another that they have managed to make more difficult or just completely ruin.

I realized tonight that maybe one reason these feelings are re-surfacing to the extent that they are is because the anniversary of Ed’s passing is like a reminder to me about all the anger I’ve had against them and how they helped drive him to the lowest point in his life. As much as I want to have a functional relationship with them, a part of me will never forget how poorly they treated him, especially when you compare their treatment of him to their treatment of me.

Tonight, like I anticipated, my mother asked and obsessed over the same things I predicted. Since she knew I had dinner with my cousins’ cousins in Montreal, she asked me five hundred annoying questions about their family and made sure to add in the 100-dollar question, “I don’t mean to be nosy, but who paid the (dinner) bill?” There’s really no winning here no matter what answer I give. There are three possible answers: 1) I paid, which would infuriate her, 2) they paid, which she would be mad about because then she’d feel a massive, guilty need to re-pay them immediately because it’s impossible for her to truly believe that anyone would willingly do anything nice for me without expecting something in return as soon as possible, or 3) we split the bill, which also would drive her crazy because then we were all cowardly and none of us would take the initiative. Of course, when I said it didn’t matter and that my cousin paid the bill, she got annoyed and asked if I had bought them a gift. No, Mom, I didn’t immediately run to a store to buy them a gift after dinner because I’m not that transparent. But I will remember that they were so generous, and I will most definitely offer and pay the bill when they decide to come to New York eventually.

It’s a good thing that I’ve somehow managed to un-learn a lot of the stupid, negative things my mother has tried to teach me. I shouldn’t feel guilty when people are nice and pay the bill for me and feel like I “owe” them something ASAP. When I pay the bill for others, I shouldn’t feel like I am “waiting” for them to pay next time. It should just be what it is, and if I surround myself with good people, we should all be good and generous with each other. It doesn’t have to be negative if you can just look at it positively and think that maybe not everyone is out to “get” you.

I called my mom today after I got off work, and I could tell she was on edge because she kept asking me the same questions twice minutes after asking them the first time. I asked her what she was doing, and she said that she and my dad were getting ready to go visit Ed at the Columbarium. Since they weren’t here on the 22nd, they had planned to come see him after they came back from Monterey.

On the train ride home later tonight, I suddenly felt really solemn when I thought about all those times that Ed hated spending time alone with my parents, and all those calls he would make to me when both of them were not home to rant to me, or that brief period when he had a mobile phone, and he’d use it to call me to complain about them. As much as I love my parents, they always see the glass half empty and look for the worst in every person and every situation; it’s just the way they are, and I’m sure it has been shaped by life circumstances they have faced as well as bad experiences with others they’ve had. Ed knew this, and he couldn’t stand it. Even in their calmest moments together, Ed was always tense and uneasy; he never felt fully comfortable and was always scared of the next second when our dad would criticize him for doing something “stupid” or our mom would snap at him for something else nit-picky.

And when I thought about all this, I realized: the truth is that their calmest times together have been… now, when Ed is no longer of human form, and my parents go visit him on their own at the Neptune Columbarium. As depressing as that is, it is the reality of the situation. My dad can’t say anything to put him down, my mom is too overcome by her grief of losing him, now just over a year ago, that she can’t get mad about anything, and Ed… is just quiet and observes them observing him.

I don’t mean to be an offensive person, but sometimes it’s as though I have no choice but to say something that will piss someone else off. I spent most of my childhood being told that I had to be nice to everyone, smile and laugh, be charming, be agreeable, not stir things up. I’m sure the reason for this was a combination of my being a girl and being Asian, but either way, it’s not very conducive to making sure that people don’t think that you are a doormat, stupid, or have zero personality.

So I was on my way to dinner with some college friends, and I am telling one of these friends a conflict I am having. She immediately starts giving me advice, i.e. how to assimilate and be something I am not. She is dead serious. She is not even half joking. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I refuse to accept being a phony (and anyone who got anything out of Catcher in the Rye should know this, too), so I proceeded to tell her off. I told her that I am 28 years old working at a tech company, not in K-12 trying to “fit in” and struggling amidst cooties, boy trouble, and self esteem issues. If I can’t be myself now, when the hell am I ever going to be myself? If anyone has any desire to lead a meaningful life, s/he would not just walk around being a fake and doing things for the sake of doing them. At the end of my rant, she was obviously rendered completely speechless and just had this half stunned, half “you’re so evil” look on her face. So, I changed the subject.

Needless to say, I won’t be initiating any more outings with this person. In fact, I was reminded in this moment why I’d made no effort to contact her in the last five months since I saw her last.