Mental Hemorrhoids

Dead Weight

2007-03-11T05:54:00.000-07:00

Yup, you really are. Think about it.

-I do practically everything around the house (wash dishes, take garbage out, clean, cook, etc.).
-I cover your lack in finances because you spend more than you earn.
-When you do things, not even necessarily for me but for the household, it's few and far between.
-I take extra time to encourage you to become what you dream of, which you don't really do for me.

I'm your housekeeper, financier and life coach.

So really you need me more than I need you. Hell, you don't even satisfy me physically. Frankly, you are not essential to my life. The reason I hung around was because of how I love you and therefore enjoyed your company. That's it, you are just company to me. Now, I'm not even so sure I enjoy it.

You're just a dead weight. Really. You're something I can do without.

A Little Honesty?

2007-03-07T12:34:00.000-08:00

What do you do when you've caught your spouse in deception and lies?

Why is it so hard to be honest and open?

How can people claim to love you and keep you in the dark about their activities?

Do they really think they can keep it from you forever?

Can't they foresee the consequence of their dishonesty?

It's dark and I can't see a thing. Someone shine me a light from somewhere...please.

I'm Tired

2007-02-27T10:32:00.000-08:00

I'm exasperated. Mother thinks I'm a cash cow and I'm sick of it. Everytime she needs some money, she calls me or texts me until she gets me to call her. When she doesn't, I don't hear a peep from her. And on the ocassion that we get to talk on the phone socially, she monopolizes the conversation and it's all about her. She never fails to mention how she never has enough cash because prices are so high. Moreover, she repeatedly forgets to ask how I am doing when she usually has all of an hour and a half to do that.

I'm tired of talking about money. I'm tired of hearing how she hates being a burden to us but does not hesitate to ask for more even if I've just given her some. I'm tired of hints, manipulation, tears and tantrums so she can get what she wants while I am buried in bills, expenses, debt and my own challenges in life.

I need a break.

Bridezilla

2006-08-28T06:32:00.000-07:00

A niece is getting married. "Woohoo!" Or so you'd think. Well, that's far from what the clan is feeling right now. She's become this epitome of uncouthness and tactlessness. Her attitude has been less than exemplary lately. She now behaves like she was just crowned queen of some principality, sans the breeding.

Her immediate family is not exactly wealthy although they like to present themselves as such to the general public. The extended family, who are aware of their financial situation and want her to have a special day, have volunteered to contribute items for her wedding at their own expense, out of love. Shockingly, she had the audacity to say in a whining tone, "I don't want anything tacky or cheap!" She has turned up her nose to anything that has been offered to her. She makes everyone feel that it's their privilege and honor to be able to participate in or contribute to her wedding, instead of appreciating all the help offered to her to offset her costs. She never had the courtesy to personally announce her wedding to the extended family nor ask politely for or accept the help she obviously needs. Yet she expects it all to come together seamlessly anyway, with nary a hint of gratitude.

So now everyone in the extended family has lost interest and backed off. They are now not willing to part with their hard-earned money when it is not even appreciated. After all, they all have their own kids to worry about, without having to add the whims of a bratty 30-year-old child of their sibling.

Weddings are such memorable family moments, aren't they? :)

Be Careful Who You Marry

2006-07-31T05:47:00.000-07:00

I begin to understand now the qualms of parents when their child marries someone they don't think has the same basic values and sense as they do.

I realize this as I witness this certain family's worst fears unfolding, when they deal with their son/brother in-law, his wife (their child/sister) that he's influenced and the kids that they have both brought up.

The son-in-law was very obnoxious to begin with when he married their daughter/sister years ago. He covers up his abysmal insecurity and self-doubt with a super puffed-up ego, misses no chance to blow his own horn whether based on truth or lies, and thinks everyone else is his intellectual inferior. Frankly, he does not possess an ounce of wisdom and his ignorance sometimes astounds me. When he has a disagreement with his in-laws, he spares no arrows and uses even his kids to wage his own battles for him. Needless to say, his kids have inherited his ways and are growing up obnoxious, insensitive, tactless, disrespectful, ungrateful, arrogant and stupid. They think their father is an oracle and swallows the bullcrap he feeds them about their grandparents, aunts and uncles. It does not seem to faze them that they malign these same folks that were the first ones to jump in many times in the past when they needed help.

This particular branch of this family has caused everyone else many disappointments, deep hurts, disagreements, and fights because of their collective arrogance and ignorance. I see him as this very slow-acting poison that is corrupting their next generation and killing clan harmony.

It's a family coming undone all because their daughter did not have the sense to choose a better man. It is very sad to witness.

To My Fellow Immigrants

2006-05-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

This is in light of the recent issues regarding illegal immigrants here in the US and yesterday's "A Day Without (Illegal) Immigrants" nationwide protests.

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While I feel compassion for people who think they have no other chance in life but to go to another country to try and make a better life, I do have a problem with people having no qualms in doing something which they know is illegal. The impression that you will give is if you don't think twice about breaking the law now, what will stop you from breaking another later on? That is not the first impression you want to give the country you're wanting to live in. You want them to know that you can be an upstanding citizen, if they allow you to be.

While I understand the difficulty of learning a language, know that when you desire to live in another country and enjoy the fruits thereof, one should also make the effort to learn the language and assimilate. I don't mean you should forget your culture. Live it but don't expect the locals to conform to you nor demand that they learn your language. Speaking the local tongue has its social and economic advantages. Do not limit yourself to only the social and business community that speaks only your language. There are so many other opportunities and growth that can be had if you allow yourself to explore that outer circle.

We are in a country where one that they consider their hero once said, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Your desire to live in this country should include being a contributing citizen to society as a whole, not just to live off the goods of the land. Trying to create an alternative nation that speaks only your language, demanding that the whole country cater to your needs and wants, championing things which will be an advantage only to your people will not unite you with the rest of the country. The creation of the Spanish version of the Star Spangled Banner is great if your desire is to create a deeper understanding for those who aren't so good with English to comprehend better what America is all about. But if it was created and played repeatedly as a show of Latino solidarity and political muscle, then it only serves to create a feeling of resentment against you and everything you represent, instead of making others feel one with you.

Why not take the legal recourse instead of browbeating a whole country into giving you what you want? Get a lawyer and appeal your case. You will always find sympathetic lawyers who can give you their services for a low fee or even pro bono. I've known a lot of people who have taken this route. They had a tourist visa when they first came but spoke to a lawyer to seek legal papers to stay. And since they have proven that they are upstanding and moral citizens, have gotten approval for a green card.

Bullying a whole nation into submission and demanding that they change the laws to accommodate you through economic and political sabotage wins you no friends, just enemies. Tread carefully, as you might turn even those who were previously sympathetic to your cause, against you.

Ang mababaw kong sis-in-law

2006-04-17T09:50:00.000-07:00

It's so annoying to talk to people who don't really listen. One of my sisters-in-law is like that. When you talk to her, she has this way of bursting with superlatives as a commentary for any update you give her and she bombards you with affectionate words like sweeties and honeys that it drowns out whatever you're really trying to say, and then she ends that conversation quickly with some endearments. She almost always does it in the same manner too.

"That's great! Okay, honey. I'll talk to you soon -- kisses and hugs!!!" (complete with a plastered politician kind of smile).

*roll eyes*

She may mean it but it just totally comes across as insincere, dismissive and so damn condescending. She should have been a politician. Most of the talks I've had with her have been very superficial, just weather, health, major events and such. I have known her for six years and we haven't gone beyond skimming the surface. The couple of times that I do remember delving just a little bit, she voiced opinions that I gently disagreed with, and told her pointedly why. She couldn't argue.

I think she considers herself more righteous and knowledgeable than anyone else so I guess she has no patience to listen to what she may consider as prattle from anyone else. Or, she may just have a short attention span. No matter what it is, it bugs the hell out of me.

That's probably why her kids always seem to have attention-deficit. Boy, they can talk your ears off when they have you as their captive audience. They have this habit of talking over each other to you, all at the same time that you don't know how and who to listen to.

Now I know why.

Complain, complain, complain!

2006-04-10T17:43:00.000-07:00

I don't hear from her much from her. But when I get a phone call or an IM, more often than, she has some new problem to worry and whine about.

This friend of mine has a life that a lot of people would envy. An attractive woman who has a lovely home and drives nice cars. She's married to a very nice and sweet man who's a scion from a wealthy family, but also happens to earn a good living as a professional. He earns well enough so she can stay at home and concentrate on raising her kids, and still have plenty to spare to sample things that a lot of people cannot afford to have.

My net worth isn't probably even half of hers, but when we talk, you'd think the world was crashing on her. She hasn't even gone through the many things that I have had to endure in my life and yet I'm so much more positive about life than she is. I keep reminding her how she has led a seemingly charmed life and that many people are worse off than her - that she has to count her blessings. It's like talking to a brick wall. When I say that, her responses tell me that she thinks she's just way above those ordinary people that are supposedly worse off than her that it's something I shouldn't even say. And I may be wrong, but there's also this gut feeling that I have been trying to ignore. Sometimes, I also feel that she just complains in order to rub it in that she has more than me and most people. Di ko ma-explain, but those who have experienced it will know what I mean.

She likes to wallow in her pity party and constantly sends me an invitation. I've tried so hard to be a good sounding board and lift her up, each and every time. I can honestly say I've been a great friend but I think I'm going to be available less and less. Nakakapagod na kasi, 'noh!

Being the Parent to My Mom

2006-04-02T19:14:00.000-07:00

I'm the child. I'm supposed to learn from my parent - be guided, be corrected, be led by them. But that has ceased happening between me and my mom. More and more, I find myself being the parent to my mother. I've come to a point where I find myself gently reminding my mother what the proper response is to certain situations and people. I'm not sure if my Mom is going through her second childhood or that she really has not matured past a certain stage in life.

It's very frustrating for me to be telling my mom how to deal with family/relationship crisis, when she should be the one imparting wisdom to me in my everyday dealings. Most children run to their parents when they have problems. I don't. I don't trust that my mom will give me the proper advice sometimes. She has the ability to empathize greatly with her kids that she can become blind to our faults. She becomes incapable of being impartial enough not to side with us when we need the correction. So when I want advice, I need to find someone else to run to who will tell me the truth even if it hurts me, or I have to figure it out on my own. Nakakalungkot.

Still On High School...

2006-03-27T18:47:00.000-08:00

I once mentioned a fellow classmate's name to a friend, she reacted and said something like, "Oh, I don't like her so much. I heard that back then she was talking bad about me." Another time, I mentioned yet another classmate, and the response was, "Her? We were close once, but when she found out that the guy she likes liked me instead, she started to say things against me."

I sympathize. However, these incidents were more than a decade ago. We were all kids back then, prone to envy, foolish talk and pettiness. It's all in the past. You would think that after college, graduate studies, a career and a family, all those things in the past would be considered trivial and all the little resentments forgotten. Apparently, it's not.

I guess as some people glory in those olden days, they also hang on to the little resentments that they had then.

Time to get a life. Sa totoo lang!

Life after high school

2006-03-25T08:03:00.000-08:00

I regularly receive e-mail from my High School e-group. I really enjoy walking down memory lane and recalling all the stupid stuff we did back then. The trouble my friends and I got ourselves into were the stuff made for hilarious teen flicks. But I have read again and again, emails claiming that high school days were the greatest, how we were the best batch, how the friends you make there are the friends you have for life, etc. I agree to an extent. But frankly, I can't relate.

It isn't that I didn't enjoy a certain amount of popularity then or that my memories of those days were bad. Oh, I had a lot of fun in High School. I had a great time and as good a set of friends as you possibly can, at that age and level. I just really don't think that my high school days were the greatest in my life, you know.

I didn't realize how much peer pressure there was in High School until after I left. I felt free from the trappings of 'popularity' and being cool. After, the 'selection' I had were more varied too when it came to the things I did, the friends I made, the places I went to. I was freed from wanting to be cool and popular -- to being myself. I didn't need to affiliate myself with a group to feel good or accepted. In college, I even got out of a sorority pledge simply because I felt that I didn't need to kowtow through the inititiation rites to feel accepted by a 'society' -- a bunch of sorority sisters that will try and dictate to me what I should do during all my years in college. Hell, I didn't get freed from the peer pressure in high school only to jump into it again with a bunch of sorority sisters. I remained what the fraternities and the sororities call a "barbarian". I thought I was pretty cool the way I was, and the way I always being recruited to be a pledge told me that thought I was too. :)

I enjoyed High School but that was just the prelude. In College, I felt that the best was yet to come. Yup, I did so much more with my life after that. I had more than my shares of failures and some successes, but it's been one hell of a ride.

High School should be fun and memorable, but your glory days they should NOT be. There's just more to life after, you know.

"Kung may extra ka..."

2006-03-24T07:31:00.000-08:00

Just because I live in a first world country, a few relatives back in the Philippines think I'm an endless pit of money. It's not that they're greedy, but sometimes they do forget that making a living in a first world country means my cost of living is higher as well. They have this idea that I have a lot of money to spare. I know that they don't ask out of greediness, and they probably think that it couldn't hurt to just ask. Hey, the worst response I can have is to tell them no, right?

But still, I do feel very bad sometimes when I can't meet their needs and wants. I and my family do have our own needs and wants to take care of in our lives and we don't always have the extra money to take care of theirs. Sometimes I even feel guilty about using our extra money to reward ourselves with a little family enjoyment simply because I wasn't able to give my relatives back home what they want.

I'm lucky compared to some of my friends whose relatives shamelessly try to take advantage of them just because they earn in dollars or euros. My relatives don't really ask me for everything. I'd be happy to give it to them though, if I could afford it. But I can't and I can only do so much. And unless you're in the same boat, you have no idea how sucky that feeling is.