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In wonderland

“I'd rather not”

Tag Archives: Family

September 17, 2012 A story about carrots and parents, finishing with beers

I did it, I did it!

I had a stress, a stress I only have when I’m in a new relationship. Our relationship is not that new, almost 10 months, and these were 10 stressful months. Meeting the parents.

When your partner tells you how great his parents are, how understanding and loving, what a sense of humor they have, I guess this stress is unfounded.

But E. never told me these about his parents. He told me

  • how his father got drunk and fought with his mother,
  • how his mother is sometimes a slave for his drunk father,
  • how they all go on Sundays at church (talking about people who get drunk and hurt people around themselves but go to church and get clean of their sins),
  • how religious his parents are,
  • how his mother (probably) still believes he(my E.) is a virgin at 25,
  • how she got very scared when she heard I am agnostic (actually she didn’t even know what that is),
  • how he couldn’t tell his parents he went with me (and only me) for a short holiday(sleeping together in a room, in a bed, that’s something his mother doesn’t have to know… no)

and so on.

I wanted to keep an open mind. But after everything he ever told me about his parents, I couldn’t.

I once told him “OK, let’s go, I’ll meet them”.

And he told me: “OK, if YOU want, my father is drunk, but….”

Oh, no no no.

But last time we fought about me not meeting his parents, I promised him “You’ll see, I’ll meet them until you will be able to say ’10 months’”

And that’s one week from now.

So when he wrote(on line) : “We are invited to Sophie’s birthday on Saturday” (his niece who turned 1), I said “ok” although I knew all his family would be there.

And let me tell you what a big family. E. has 4 brothers and sisters. Actually a brother and three sisters. 2 of the sisters weren’t there( one is a NUN and one has a drunk husband who forbids her to see her family).

So one brother and one sister. Each of them has a boy and a girl. Both little boys are 3 years old, both little girls are (almost) 1 year. One of the girls had her birthday.

I meet his mother, shook hands with her, I meet his father, didn’t shake hands with him. Not on purpose, I just didn’t know where to look anymore, I felt a rush of blood to my head, I felt my face got pink.

I spent my time with the children. Of course I had bought them some little gifts. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t drink, and in Romanian we have an expression that expresses (intended) the stress one has, translated it sounds like this : “A carrot in one’s ass”. Well, I felt that all the time while there. So I was a bit (very) silent, just sitting on a chair and smiling sometimes. I could hardly move.

At one year, we have a custom. The godmother cuts a bit of the baby’s hair and the baby has a tray in front of her. On the tray there are car keys, a pen, a brush, money, a cross, etc. The baby has to choose 3 objects, and this is what the baby will be.

(I chose a pen, when  I was 1 year old. Probably it is a coincidence, but here I am writing. )

I ate some cake and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw 2 and a half hours had passed. And we left.

I could only feel the absence of that carrot after 2 celebratory beers.

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May 16, 2012 Students in terminal years don’t have to be happy; they just have to finish college

 

I talked with my father on  messenger. He is interested in flight, and for a month now he flies a little plane(with a remote control). He told me that today he had his first paragliding lesson. I don’t know about you, but that would be a VERY INTERESTING day in my opinion. I am very happy for him, by the way. A passionate man is a young man.

And I told him I didn’t have a day as interesting as his.

He said more interesting days will come for me.

I wrote “of course” without believing it. At this point, I don’t believe it. But if I told him my real opinion, 1. he would have said again that I complain, and 2. maybe there would have been a chance to spoil his happiness.

I don’t really understand why I can’t have fun now. And what fun? My idea of fun is not getting drunk at parties, smoking stuff and meeting boys. My idea of fun is going out, socializing without being stressed out, even READING without being stressed out.

And I can’t. At this point, everything I do has the same background : I’m stressed. I always have something to do. And if I don’t do it, I feel guilty.

And I can’t complain to my family anymore. On Monday, I haven’t even started to complain, and my father told me how I always complain and prepare them for the case of me not finishing college now. I didn’t even start to say that.

And from the beginning, I only told them that because this way a huge pressure was lifted from my shoulders. What remained was substantially smaller. I prepared them for the eventuality of me not finishing college now.  And I did that because … I can deal with my disappointment in myself. What I can’t deal with is my parents’ disappointment. Maybe if they were bad parents I would have felt things differently. But they aren’t. When people are nice and understanding the fear of hurting them is bigger. Almost like when you do a bad thing as a child, and they don’t hit you, they just give you the look; the look that makes your heart melt and makes you feel so guilty and bad. More effective than a punch. A slap.

And the problem with finishing college is that I don’t feel like it. I feel like being done with it, but …all the mess I have to go through, I’m not ready. And I wonder if any of my colleagues feel the same, or I am really too small to succeed? And they too big to fail?

I drank a beer today. And I’m not happy. But students in terminal years shouldn’t be happy. They just have to live long enough in order to finish college.

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April 16, 2012 Happiness is a kite flying on the blue sky, happiness is your father laughing, a child jumping with joy at the sight of it and your family cheering for it. Happiness is a group effort. Happiness is me running down a hill

Some time ago I had this post about happiness.

I had this clear image about happiness, seen when, being a child, I would spend part of my summers at my grandparents(the not so grandparent material ones). We would watch “Little House on the Prairie” . There was a little girl there, with braided hair. As I wrote in that post :

“I have known since the time I was a child the image of happiness – for me, of course. There was I, running down a hill, in a hurry, with the wind blowing up my dress. In this image I had braids, like Heidi, and I was laughing. I never found it, this happiness…”

From this series, I had this image of happiness, since I was a child.

Yesterday, my father and sister, my cousin took the kite and went to a hill close to here. My mother, aunt and grandmother and I remained at the house. I went in the house for a short while and when I went out again, they were gone. I looked for them everywhere until my uncle told me they went to the hill too.

So I went there to meet them. I could see them from far away, the kite was in the air and the women cheered for it. My cousin was jumping with joy, my sister was holding the ropes. I had to come down a hill to meet them, and so I RUN. I run while they cheered, while my cousin was jumping with joy, while my father laughed. I run down and seeing them so happy, the kite flying freely, I felt THAT HAPPINESS.

I finished reading a book I bought at the antiquary, a book in English(Kate’s story), written by Billy Hopkins. It was the story of his mother, and in the book, at the end,  Kate said that you just have to see happiness, in a smile on a neighbor’s face when you teach him how to bake bread, for example.

I have the feeling that happiness is the biggest miracle of life, queen over love or friendship. And how Vama Veche (Romanian band) say in one of their songs :”Fericirea este ceva care nu se atinge niciodata, dar in cautarea ei merita sa alergi toata viata” which means “Happiness is something that cannot be achieved, but it is worth it to search for it all your life”.

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April 15, 2012 Happy Easter!

If some of you have noticed I wasn’t around lately, I will tell you now. I’m currently in my Easter Holiday, and drove with my family around 500 kilometers to the borderline with Hungary and Serbia, at my grandmother, my aunts and cousins.

It’s a nice place here,  my uncle has a vulcanisation business, everybody is friendly, we drink, we talk, we eat. Some kind of “eat, pray, love”, but my grandmother is the only one doing the praying. Yesterday she was at church, at 12 o’clock A.M because of the resurrection. Well, there are as many stories or versions, as religions.

It’s a nice break. I wish you a Happy Easter!

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September 20, 2011 The land of the little green with envy people

I think I just discovered something about me…

Deep, very deep inside, there’s a land populated by little green people(who are green with envy, not with grass or leaves). These little green people are perfectionists! Yes, they are! But they’re also too comfortable to try to make anything “more perfect” so they just sit back, green with envy at people who seem to have it all…

This is me, although I am not proud to say it, to write it, or even to acknowledge it!

I don’t know what I have done wrong. I’m analyzing my whole life, in short, on chapters. Shall we?

1. The holidays when I was left(with my older sister) at my grandparents seemed to be longer than 2 months, although my parents swear now we weren’t left there more than 3 weeks. My grandmother was the one who called me stupid at the age of 6-8, who told me when I was 7 that there was no Santa, and many other things for which I can only avoid her, with respect for my father.

2. From the 1st grade I was the drawn-back girl, who was not so popular. In my class were many “stars”, and I was just… different. Cliché, I know. Sorry. The truth.

3. There’s no surprise then, that I continued to be like this in the middle-school too. My colleagues were silly and noisy, and there was no day without a headache, until I got a CD-player, and I would listen to music  and read in my bench (breaks). Of course, for that I was ridiculed. Nevertheless, I was HAPPY!

4. My parents used to say about me and my sister that we were “wild” and antisocial. We were quite hurt, and couldn’t understand why we were like this, until we noticed they were just the same, just that more polite.

I am not so shy anymore. Nor antisocial. Looking back, I have no idea what these little green people are doing there. I just hope they will shrink, they  will get smaller, until they disappear completely. And how did they get here, these little green people? I FEEL that the only thing(from those written) which hurt me as much as to have consequences of this sort are my grandparents. I don’t think I ever had a conversation longer than 3 lines with my grandfather, nor I remember hugging him. I knew, when I was little how the grandparents’ of my colleagues were, and I knew mine were nothing like it. And I longed to have real ones…

And oh, the little green people there… I want too much, and I do too little.

This I can admit. But one thing I find hard to accept is how easy some things are for some people, and how hard are for others. How easily some have all the support they have needed. How hard is for others to find the support.

I always needed someone to push me around. I cannot complain more than this, though, I am a happier case than some.

Those little green people will just remind me I’m human and I still have so much to do… to be happy.

Picture from Here.

P.s : I should be happy. I passed all my exams! And my muffins received excellent critique today!

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