There's no escaping
Krawi
at
2:10 AM
I have smelled it in the air, the pungent circumstances surrounding my ancestry, the moment I called my mom to announce my scheduled visit after a year of not seeing my family. Lord knows it took more than courage for me to go back and see my hometown, my old friends, and pieces of my life I chose to leave behind.
The place I called home appears the same, with its filthy streets and confusing transportation routes. Yet, God bless the legislators, it now looks like the city it once bragged to be, and the people…don’t even get me started on them. Certain things remain unchanged. Even those who I thought would move mountains have fallen of their lives’ cliff, and those who promised to excel had deteriorated, the rust of yester years eating up their existence from the inside.
Christmas seems to be the perfect excuse to once again venture out into my nightmare zone, to face those I swore to never get associated with, and to endure the various personalities of those I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to establish any kind of relationship with. But the holiday season that was supposed to lift my spirits up had me wishing I were somewhere else instead of solely bearing witness to the tireless family feuds and repetitious land title spats that usually end up in more trite discussions on sibling rivalry issues.
As much as I refuse to participate in this overrated domestic debate, I can’t help but capture the worst snapshots of the worst moments: of my mother ranting about my grandmother’s stubbornness, of my brother’s adorable yet insulting gibe, of my grandmother praising her three favorite children out of the 17 offspring she bore, of my Filipino relatives treating us differently because were “half-blood”, or the Chinese kin who never bothered calling because we don’t have pure Oriental blood flowing in our veins, of my father who is the object of both my affection and disappointment…
I thought I had made peace with this part of my life, the part that, I admit, I am painfully annoyed and ashamed of. I thought I had understood how my family worked, how my parents kept all the delicate secrets and spilled only those they wanted us to hear. I thought I could be satisfied with the small talks and occasional phone conversations, and the meaningless greetings that do not even account for the real feelings lurking underneath.
I wish I could tell them I’d walk through fire for them, but I know they’ll never be aware of the battles I go through everyday and of the fact that they are both my strength and weakness. I wish they’d welcome my questions but I’m sure they aren’t ready to give me their answers.
I don’t deny wishing of having been born to a less complicated, less extreme household where family members easily express and open up to each other, where relatives gather not to open fire but to bond over happy days, where misunderstandings are efficiently resolved.
Sometimes I think of cutting out the branches that links me to our small but complex family tree so that I won’t have to feel obliged to listen to my mom’s tirade, live out my dad’s too specific yet too high expectations, or engage in endless exasperating trash talks with my brother. But then again, I know I won’t be able to live without them, and it irritates me so much how they could make or break me.
As I write this, one of them is indifferently watching the holidays go by. I haven’t seen him for over a year now and all I have is a distant memory of him doing what he thought was best for me. I offer him nothing but love, hoping that he too was thinking of me praying in my old bedroom, in the sanctuary that once held the best-kept treasures of the past.
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