life and other oddities
so i'm back in taipei for basically the second time in as many months, and we've barely gotten through the first month of 2019. can every year start off like this? we landed maybe 6 hours ago, and i've already eaten lu rou fan at two different places (my recommendation of the two was the better one), a cream puff, mee sua, oluak, a hu jiao bing, doughnuts from harrits, and a cup of gula melaka milk. we also had a COMPLETE STRANGER offer us a piece of braised tofu at one of our stops, totally out of the blue, as a "welcome to taiwan" gesture. how fucking lovely is that? i love this stupid place so much. even if people seem standoffish at first, they usually turn out to be super friendly and eager to help, and i just *___________*
it's been a whirlwind of a year so far, and there hasn't really been any time to sit and reflect on everything going on. my life feels like it's in constant chaos, and i've never enjoyed there, but there is something to be said about being constantly busy. some of my favourite weekends have been spent curled up in bed with my laptop, unmoving for ten hours as i catch up on all the tv i've missed over the week.
the downside is that i become extremely irritable, and it feels like everything sets me off. my parents are constantly grating on my last nerve, and i have run through every trick in the book i have trying to keep my cool with them and not have things escalate every time we're at the dining table together (which shouldn't be that hard, i only see them maybe twice a week on average at this point, but they make it so impossible sometimes). it's always the same thing, something my dad says or does that is grossly unfair to someone else in the room (typically my brother or my mum), and because of the family dynamics i end up having to referee. which tends to turn into yelling, and crying, and/or someone leaving the table with nothing resolved and the whole cycle just repeats itself. my relationship with my dad has soured a lot in the last couple of years; it's probably a mixture of a) me constantly having to breathe down his neck about how awful he is to everyone in the house (save myself) and b) the fact that we never spend and quality time together anymore because all our conversations eventually lead back to point a.
a few weeks ago we had a big blow-out fight - one of the biggest in recent memory - but the only thing that was really different was my mum finally admitting that she isn't "a strong woman". that she knows i've had to do all the fighting because she can't stand up for herself, or her children, and someone else had to pick up the slack. she said, "i hope none of my daughters turn out like me, and i don't think you have." i don't know if i was supposed to jump in at that point to make her feel better about herself, but she was crying and i was crying and my poor brother was crying, and my dad was finally being quiet and listening for once, and i didn't. because she's not wrong. she's an amazing wife, but a terrible mother. and my dad is the opposite: amazing dad (to me), awful husband. he's emotionally abusive in so many ways, but she's emotionally manipulative, so i think they even things out between them in their own way.
i don't know. i spent so many years being angry about it, but eventually i learnt that people don't change - or they rarely do - and the only thing you can do about that is to change the way you think about them. it doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it's made me subscribe to the idea that if something bothers me, i have to fix something in myself to make it better, or decide to let it go. i guess i thought it would make me feel something to finally hear her admit that - like validation, or forgiveness, or some kind of pity, but. i don't know. it was weird. it was good to hear it out loud, like hearing that i wasn't the only one who realised how hard it's been, but i didn't need it. i'd already worked it out.
after my sister was raped and she went through her therapy phase, she came out on the other side preaching about moving on and talk therapy and how enlightened she felt, but i had none of those things and i think i'm more at peace about the shit that's gone down in my life than she will ever be. i loved the idea of talk therapy at one point, but i think bouncing ideas involving hindsight is a dangerous game. talk out something long enough and you can convince yourself of almost anything. adding someone else's input to that mix just feels like asking for trouble. all of my life's problems could be attributed to something my parents have said or done, or to a traumatic childhood experience that i maybe at the time didn't think of as traumatic (or i did but never addressed), and if i think about it that way, i know i can convince myself i'm right. but i do that all the time, and it's never felt that honest. it's why people still intrigue me, everything about their motivations and how much they understand them. it's refreshing to find people who say "i don't know why i like this" and don't try to find a deeper meaning behind that, but look for the practical ways to deal with it.
journaling feels like the less dangerous counterpart to talk therapy, because it's all my own ideas in my own head, and reflecting on things i've learnt and how to apply them to the future, instead of trying to connect the dots to the past. i don't really need resolutions so much as i need the solutions. i've always trusted the emotional things to work themselves out on their own, with a little care and attention and patience. sometimes i think ending up working with children is exactly where i was meant to be, because i feel like i teach them so much, but also like i am constantly learning about myself and how to be a better human being just from being around them. that's more than i can say for a lot of the people i've had to be around for the vast majority of my life so far.
i guess the point is that at the end of the day you can only do what's best for you, and only you know what that is. if life is like a river, i want to be the water, not the stones. i want to move around obstacles, not insist the obstacles (or other people) move around for me.
i sound delirious. (i typed delicious and that is also not wrong.) i'm going to end my night with the most unimaginably tasty mala hot pot, and then a stroll around the night markets i love so much, and then -- i guess we'll see what happens.
it's been a whirlwind of a year so far, and there hasn't really been any time to sit and reflect on everything going on. my life feels like it's in constant chaos, and i've never enjoyed there, but there is something to be said about being constantly busy. some of my favourite weekends have been spent curled up in bed with my laptop, unmoving for ten hours as i catch up on all the tv i've missed over the week.
the downside is that i become extremely irritable, and it feels like everything sets me off. my parents are constantly grating on my last nerve, and i have run through every trick in the book i have trying to keep my cool with them and not have things escalate every time we're at the dining table together (which shouldn't be that hard, i only see them maybe twice a week on average at this point, but they make it so impossible sometimes). it's always the same thing, something my dad says or does that is grossly unfair to someone else in the room (typically my brother or my mum), and because of the family dynamics i end up having to referee. which tends to turn into yelling, and crying, and/or someone leaving the table with nothing resolved and the whole cycle just repeats itself. my relationship with my dad has soured a lot in the last couple of years; it's probably a mixture of a) me constantly having to breathe down his neck about how awful he is to everyone in the house (save myself) and b) the fact that we never spend and quality time together anymore because all our conversations eventually lead back to point a.
a few weeks ago we had a big blow-out fight - one of the biggest in recent memory - but the only thing that was really different was my mum finally admitting that she isn't "a strong woman". that she knows i've had to do all the fighting because she can't stand up for herself, or her children, and someone else had to pick up the slack. she said, "i hope none of my daughters turn out like me, and i don't think you have." i don't know if i was supposed to jump in at that point to make her feel better about herself, but she was crying and i was crying and my poor brother was crying, and my dad was finally being quiet and listening for once, and i didn't. because she's not wrong. she's an amazing wife, but a terrible mother. and my dad is the opposite: amazing dad (to me), awful husband. he's emotionally abusive in so many ways, but she's emotionally manipulative, so i think they even things out between them in their own way.
i don't know. i spent so many years being angry about it, but eventually i learnt that people don't change - or they rarely do - and the only thing you can do about that is to change the way you think about them. it doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it's made me subscribe to the idea that if something bothers me, i have to fix something in myself to make it better, or decide to let it go. i guess i thought it would make me feel something to finally hear her admit that - like validation, or forgiveness, or some kind of pity, but. i don't know. it was weird. it was good to hear it out loud, like hearing that i wasn't the only one who realised how hard it's been, but i didn't need it. i'd already worked it out.
after my sister was raped and she went through her therapy phase, she came out on the other side preaching about moving on and talk therapy and how enlightened she felt, but i had none of those things and i think i'm more at peace about the shit that's gone down in my life than she will ever be. i loved the idea of talk therapy at one point, but i think bouncing ideas involving hindsight is a dangerous game. talk out something long enough and you can convince yourself of almost anything. adding someone else's input to that mix just feels like asking for trouble. all of my life's problems could be attributed to something my parents have said or done, or to a traumatic childhood experience that i maybe at the time didn't think of as traumatic (or i did but never addressed), and if i think about it that way, i know i can convince myself i'm right. but i do that all the time, and it's never felt that honest. it's why people still intrigue me, everything about their motivations and how much they understand them. it's refreshing to find people who say "i don't know why i like this" and don't try to find a deeper meaning behind that, but look for the practical ways to deal with it.
journaling feels like the less dangerous counterpart to talk therapy, because it's all my own ideas in my own head, and reflecting on things i've learnt and how to apply them to the future, instead of trying to connect the dots to the past. i don't really need resolutions so much as i need the solutions. i've always trusted the emotional things to work themselves out on their own, with a little care and attention and patience. sometimes i think ending up working with children is exactly where i was meant to be, because i feel like i teach them so much, but also like i am constantly learning about myself and how to be a better human being just from being around them. that's more than i can say for a lot of the people i've had to be around for the vast majority of my life so far.
i guess the point is that at the end of the day you can only do what's best for you, and only you know what that is. if life is like a river, i want to be the water, not the stones. i want to move around obstacles, not insist the obstacles (or other people) move around for me.
i sound delirious. (i typed delicious and that is also not wrong.) i'm going to end my night with the most unimaginably tasty mala hot pot, and then a stroll around the night markets i love so much, and then -- i guess we'll see what happens.