Warning: This is another "problematic" blog. If you want to add stress to your day, read on.
Really don't know where to start, or how to start this entry. I've got so much in my mind right now. So much emotion I need to pour out. I want to scream and shout and just be heard. But Im alone in my room and no one to talk to. I've got no friends here by my side, Im alone.
It started with a message from my mother. It was a super lengthy message that contains an incident of my sister (3rd child) pointing a knife to my mother! I immediately painted a mental picture of what happened. My mother was very emotional in her message. She iterated that my sister pointed a knife at her and luckily by the intercession of mother Mary, miraculously nothing of the deadly happened. I quickly messaged my sister asking for her version. My sister's version was that she was in the kitchen with our eldest sister and her boyfriend, when my mother barged in and demanded that they split the electric bill. She said she just snared at my mother because she doesn't want to pay if our youngest sister will not pay also.
If Im to be asked whom I believe? I dont believe 100% in any of them. My mother is very emotional and plays the victim card. My sister can sometimes be violent. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
That was part 1 of my mother's message to me.
The next part was the agonizing history of her endurance through the years of raising us.
I don't really remember the first time she said the story but the details are very clear to me because it has been repeated a thousand time since, and heard it a thousand times, year after year!
It goes like this.
1. My father is an abusive, drunkard, boneless man. My mother tells me that my father had beaten her up as requested by his sister.
2. The family of my father is not caring enough to take her to the hospital when she gave labor.
3. Our house was stoned and I got wounded that needed to be stitched that is why I have a scar on my upper left eye.(which is untrue because I remember I got this scar when my cousin accidentally pushed me and I got bumped on a sharp edge).
4. They were living very poor. My father got a job, thanks to connections of my grandparents through my mother side, that he got in working for the government.
5. She raised us, brought us to school.
6. My grandparents father side are terrible in laws to her, making her life miserable
7. The relatives of my father are always conspiring for her to be ousted in our home, maliciously making stories and destroying her image to us.
Sometimes she adds the following events in her life prior to being with my father
1. She babysits her cousins
2. She didnt complete her schooling because her parents are always gambling and had no time for her
3. She travels with her grandmother to some parts of the country
And the some freshly added ones
1. Her children are not respectful and does not give her any help
2. We look down on the partner of our youngest sister who is working hard for his family
3. We dont respect them
If I present this, I can make a movie out of it, or better yet a TV Series with multi arc stories and maybe a 20-year season.
There came a point in my life that I started to dig. At first I was determined to find the truth. But the truth can never be found because the truth does not exist. There are only versions of the "truth" from various perspectives. So I started to understand the situation and maybe also understand who I am, what makes my genes, my attitude that I presumably got 50-50 from both my parents. I have an entry that lists some physical and emotional traits and where I think I got it from.
Learning to read this complex story of life and making sense out of it, I would not expect to arrive at a conclusion. My parents are ill-prepared to become parents in the first place.
They were young back then I think 21 when they started to hook up. 21, my mother did not even finished high school. My father was in college but did not finished it because of vices or lack of funds, whatever the reason was. 21 they started to form a family, my mother moved in with my father. My mother lost 2 children before our living eldest sister was born. My father philandered with another woman. They had a daughter to which this very day my mother tells that it is not my father's daughter.
My grandparents (father side) may not be approving of the whole situation. They might even distrust my mother.
But then came us. My eldest sister was born. Me next in as little as 11 months apart. My mother tells us a story that one time my eldest sister got sick and then me while we are still babies. And we were both in the hospital, my parents would be devastated not only because of fear that we might die but also because of the financial trouble they are in.
My father back then worked at a glass factory that might not pay well and was very labor intensive. My mother sells anything (peanut butter, 2nd hand clothes, jewelry) to make ends meet.
While they are busy finding money, my eldest sister was left to the care of my grandparents (father side) and me as a baby was left to the care of my mother's side. We would be reunited eventually into our own home but it was beside my grandparents (father side). My father is always assigned to far provinces and we seldom see him. So while we are growing up, my fondest memories are with my grandparents and my father's relatives.
My grandpa Max (mother's side) sometimes takes us to their beach property on school vacations. This is the time that we got to interact with my mother's side of the family. In my opinion they are classy and spoiled children. There was this one time when we were invited to dinner by one of mom's relative coming back from the US. We were about to dine and then we were ordered to clean our hands. I dont know yet how to properly clean hands as they do. Then on the dinner table, there were a lot of spoon and fork, at home we only use spoon and fingers. I will never forget that day when they pointed out that we dont have manners. It bore a special place in my memory.
I do not hate all of my mother's side relatives. I have this particular aunt who I like and some cousins whom I can talk to. But most of them I dont want to interact with because we dont have anything in common, they are all about their businesses, their travel abroad, their daughters and sons entering medicine school in a private institution.
So that is the foundation of our family. Not so good as it seemed.
Then came my two younger sisters. Our youngest sister was raised by our relative (father side) who also sidelined as a nanny for us while we were growing up.
In my perspective I did not feel the hardness of life while growing up. Sure I didnt have any money to spend. I didnt have the fancy toys. I was not in a private school. I was not introduced to restaurants. But as I remembered it the world was my playground. In the morning I would talk to my grandparents sitting on their sewing machines before eating breakfast. Go to school. Play during the afternoon. Eat dinner with my grandparents, watch TV with them. Go to church with them. It was very seldom that I can remember my parents. When growing up I did not look for them. When Im hungry I either go to my grandparents or go to my auntie's house and look for food. They always give me something to eat.
So we grew up. Fast-forward to now.
My youngest sister already had a son and a daughter living in with her partner in our house.
My younger sister (3rd) left for Australia, got wed and returned back here with us a little less than a year.
Our family is disintegrating so to speak.
Miscommunication abounds.
Maybe because the communication lines weren't established in the first place. We as siblings were only siblings by blood. We were raised individually.
I dont know how to end this blog, but maybe it doesnt end yet because life still goes on.
