#i feel unbelievably grateful he came into my life. the shit we weathered together. that he chose me.

[sadbutfunnyandtrue]

Forgiveness or Stupidity?

I have been alone for quite some time now. Not by choice, but circumstance. Maybe even by fate.

I have never been close to my family. We were doomed from the beginning--

gambling, abusive father, who I wouldn’t speak to on and off for 30 years, until the year he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer; whose love and praise I craved; who was charming and handsome and gifted with music, skill, and craftsmanship; who I hated and loved and forgave and regretted never doing so sooner,

my overworking, bighearted, kind-to-everyone, naive, trying-the-best-that-she-could, the living, breathing emobdiment of “a mother’s love,” martyr mother--whose sole purpose in life was to dedicate herself to her children, but paid the price of being a single, working mom, by leaving us to raise ourselves,

with the help of my old school, immigrant grandmother, a beautiful, fiery soul with a mysterious and resilient past, (who gets her own stories, in later installments),

and my brother, the notorious, pathological liar with some sort of narcissistic personality disorder (or multiple personality, or sociopath... I never knew the difference, but if you met him, then grew to know him, maybe you could tell me) and a violent streak. 

Never have I ever had healthy relationships. And even if they posed the potential to be, I found ways of sabotaging them, because I was (and sometimes still am) insecure and have abandonment issues, feeling undeserving and needy all of the time. That I was the problem and I couldn’t have that. I don’t even know what that looks like.

I felt this way about my father’s love. I felt neglected and abandoned by my graveyard-working, absentee mother, while she enabled my brother to replicate the fear and intimidation that my dad taught us as children. That meant power. That meant respect. That meant I had to get the fuck out of dodge, because there was no way my mom would ever kick him out.

I didn’t have lifelong childhood friends. I can think of one, who is literally one month older than me. There were a group of us, but he and I were soulmates. Not romantically, anymore or if ever, but in a, “you and I were put on this earth together to be there for each other, no matter the distance, you’re never alone,” kind of way. I swear, not romantic. There is an unspoken reverence between us. Our friendship and our connection are sacred. And though we don’t speak or see each other often, our bond is unbreakable.

A bunch of our moms worked at the same place, all got pregnant around the same time, and raised us all together until we went to different high schools. Then drugs (not me, not yet, anyway), then college, then money got in the way. Our parents used to think he and would get married, and I think, secretly, we did too, but the teasing was too much to deal with at 10-years-old. 

But when we used his address so I could go to school, after my mom packed up our lives and ran away from my dad, he was officially dubbed my “cousin,” because brown parents cannot talk about divorce and violence and bring shame to my name. That was a faux pas. We weren’t allowed to explain to anyone where we came from, how we came to a whole new town that I had never heard of, or why I was always around him. (My family and I lived at his house for two months until my mom could find a place for us to refuge). Anyway, while he is still my dearest and truest friend, we grew up and drifted apart. I still, and always will, hold a special place for him in my heart. He is the brother, twin, and protector I always wanted and the man I could have had but couldn’t bring or allow myself to want. His friendship and his heart are more important to me than his romantic love (there is none, trust me). He is, and always will be, the first man to never let me down. And I am eternally grateful for that.

I was always my brother’s little sister. While I can say now that my brother is a total piece of shit, there are some parts of him that are regretfully going to waste. He was smart and artistic. He had the potential to do anything, and I believed he was going to be a historian or a mathematician, or a robotics engineer, computer programmer, anime illustrator... then I don’t know what happened. I think he just got lost in the cool. He turned into a real jerk when we moved, lying on my name to make himself seem bigger and better. I would follow him a grade after, in the shadows of his legacy and the lies he told, all incredibly unbelievable and exaggerated fabrications. And it wasn’t until high school that people caught on. Thank god. I was tired of being abused and picked on by the hands and mouths of other people, because of the lies that someone, that was supposed to love and protect me, started. 

Because we were so close in age, I was expected to follow in his footsteps--do the same things he did, because my mom wanted us to get into good colleges and hang out together, fail out of my academic program because we shared the same last name and I had to be a fuck up, according to my teachers... So I obeyed, and did like any other tiny, angry, Asian woman would do--I obeyed, and vowed to prove all of them wrong.

But then they saw me. I became my own person. And later got crushed under all of the pressure to be better than him and emerge in my own light. But that’s another story...

We hung out in the same circles, and peers and teachers started to see it too. His friends stopped hanging out with him, but still hung out with me... which finally leads me to the fucking point of this entry...

The boys.

These were my friends in high school. We all initially connected because of my brother, but for reasons unknown to me (at least, my role and value in this group, as I would later find out), I stuck around them and they stuck around me. This group of boys, miseducated and raised on hyper-sexual anime, drowned in toxic ideologies of what it means to be a man, and cursed with small town, bro mentalities, stuck to me. And I took it as a feeling of belonging and love, because I had nothing else, and it was already there. That’s not to say we didn’t have good times, we did. But there was always something that made me feel as though I didn’t truly belong. Uneasy.

Needless to say, this became more apparent when I left town to go to college. I got to study new things that interested me, learn about myself and my culture, meet new people from different walks of life, explore in a way that allowed me to grow, have conversations where I was valued and listened to, where I was challenged... and they resented me for it. For making new friends, creating a life outside of them, for being “too good to come visit or hang out,” when I couldn’t afford to skip class just because they were there, or come home for holidays because I was working retail and needed to pay rent. They couldn’t be bothered to hear about how happy and excited I was, or even pretend they were happy that I was happy and growing, because I was doing it without them and they thought I felt above them. I did not. I just wanted to share the newer parts of my life with my homies. My day ones’. Who turned out to be fair weather. A season for a reason. 

Later, I would move back home and the feeling of unease and discomfort grew, when I began hanging out with them again. I felt like they were still the same people they were in high school, just older and more reckless than before. It was fun and exciting but also really stupid of me to slip back into the drama and the routine of bro talk. “Make me a sandwich” jokes. Talking over the girls and repeating exactly what we said a minute before, as though coming up with novel ideas and dismissing us because any input we had was insignificant unless it came from a man’s mouth. Reducing women in moves, in music, and in our circle of friends to their body parts, when we were in their presence. And when only one girl was there, the talk was amplified. It make me feel dirty and disgusted. And small. So insignificant, unimportant, and small.

I made the fatal mistake of hooking up with the worst of the group, a child that epitomized every basic ass fuckboi quality you can think of, a stripped down version of all of their worst parts. When he ended our situationship for the 7th time in 10 months, after cheating on me numerous times, and I came to my senses, I went after the boy that I was, and always was, in love with in our high school years. I would learn that he felt the same way the entire time, but it was again, “what about the group?” 

I was excommunicated for going after one of the homies, joining the weird group of “homie hoppers,” while we literally had one girl sleep with 4 people in the group and no one batted an eye, where partners traded and switched like line dancing... But it didn’t matter, because the bros we’re cool with it. And what about us? The women?

And forget that we were madly in love with each other--permission was to be asked if he could date me. Permission?! From whom?! Last time I checked it was my body and my heart. FuCkBoI didn’t own me! And since when do we announce our love affairs before this jury full of fools?

After a couple of months of blinding, beautiful love, later replaced with tons of mutual toxicity, I was excommunicated again. I could tell you why I made these terribly, illogical decisions, but this entry is already way too long and I can save this for later, deeper content. 

These very well could be in the top 5 worst decisions I ever made. But also the best, because it showed me who my friends were. Literally. I saw them for who they really were. Those that stuck around and hose who said, “fuck that bitch,” and sided with their bros, did. And those that stuck around selectively, in secret, and separate from the rest, might have been the fucking worst.

All this group did was gossip about each other. If one member of the crew was absent, you already knew they were the highlight of that moment. They aired out everyone’s laundry, especially when it wasn’t theirs to air out. The ones who rode the fence would not only share what I shared in confidence, but took it out of context, for it to be misconstrued in the minds of these bros before hoes, and repeated to the general public. 

Now when you’re in relationships, nobody knows it better that the two people in that relationship. And when you’re heartbroken, you’re looking for support and an ear to hear you out, help you wipe your tears, and sweep up the pieces of the life you had before them. It was unfortunate that our relationship formed, observed, and judged by the live audience of this group. But who better to understand you than people that know you both? Those who know the people you are at your cores and who can be unbiased, because they understand that they don’t know who we were behind closed doors.

I sat there and explained myself about the first situation. And then my current (at that time) break up. And I felt judged. And small. And invalidated. Again.

When I found out that my pain was being spread like confetti at a Warrior’s parade, excessively and way way waaaaay out of context, I finally called them out on it, right away. This time, was the last time. This time, I was done.  I couldn’t believe it, but at the same time, what did I expect?

I was done explaining why I felt hurt, why what they did was wrong. I was done trying to tell my friends this is not how friends behave. I was done having my feelings invalidated by people who failed to listen and hear me and show up for me in a way that they did for their fellow dicks.

 And I cut off all contact and have lived a much happier, drama-freeish, life. For the most part. But also, a lonelier, more selective, more private, and protected life. All in all, a better one, poised for the kind of growth and life that I want.

One of these friends texted me today, two years later, to the day, that we last spoke:

“Hey. I went to this therapy forum. I want you to know that I still value you as a friend and I’m sorry for what wrongs I caused you. I take ownership over the falling out we had and I ope that we can be friends again.”

I read that, and having gone what I have in these last two years, I responded:

“Hey. I really appreciate that. Thanks.”

To be continued...

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