7 DAYS IN 2018 - EVERYTHING SUCKS!
Today is January 7th of 2018, and my body is filled with nothing but resentment, anger, and rage. Let me tell you why. I currently have a lot of stories about to go up but none of them is long enough for my ego to consider them as stories, so I'll just conjoint all stories into one big post.
First of all the stories is our Family Reunion
We don't celebrate Christmas because its against our religion to celebrate Christmas. Their reasoning is its a Pagan holiday, it used to be called Saturnalia, and there's not enough evidence in the Bible to support Christ's birth in December 25. I am okay with this because my grandma's side always held an annual family reunion therefore I can be with the whole family.
During our family reunion we have a tradition where all working adults would sit in front and all unemployed kids/adults would fall in line to collect money. There would also be games where one can earn extra income. For me, being the scrooge that I am this is a big big bonus for the end of the year. This is where I always collect money, try to participate in games (despite my crippling social anxiety) just to earn money. It sounds like I am greedy, but that's not true. The reason why I try my best to earn money in this occasion is because I know I wouldn't have another chance to earn money at the end of the year (besides New Years' day) and I really have a lot of things/hobbies I want to spend money on. I usually spend my money in things like dermatology visits, taking recreational classes, paying the goddamn transaction fees in our homeroom class, and many many more.
Money is somewhat a sensitive issue when you have a discussion about it with me. I've spent countless nights worrying how to earn and save money. I read tons of investment books and articles. I walk for 1 kilometer just to save a cent (in US terms). This is where the story begins.
Before we headed out to our annual family reunion my father told me that we (me and my brother) are required to give him 1,000 php ($20) for this thing at our church that they always do at the start of the year. I told him that I was lucky if I even earn 1,000 php in that event because usually the money I pooled from the reunion wouldn't even amount that much. He then reduced the price to 500 php ($10). I told him why do I even need to give that much, and he told me all this reason about the church and blah blah blah. At that time I was eating and it made me lose my appetite and I just walked from the table to do the dishes.
I don't mind saving or spending a little money just so I can contribute something to God. I am not that greedy or a scrooge. But what I don't get is why do I need to go out of my way and give him money when there isn't even a transparency of money transactions in the church. I see a lot of ministers spending money here and there, buying mansions, creating useless infrastructures, buying commercial jetplanes and here I am going to spend countless nights worrying if I am not saving enough. Talking to my dad is useless, he doesn't know how to listen and he always spin his stories and make it look like I am the one at fault. Its irritating but there's nothing I can do. I coughed up the 500 php after participating in a spicy noodle eating challenge where I earned 800 php ($16).
Second, would be my unreasonable parents
I love talking to my parents. Its one of the things that separates me from the typical millennial, that and the fact I actually spend my money on necessities, but there are times that talking to them is useless because instead of treating you like a human being, they see you that is this lesser specie than them. The first story is an example of how unreasonable my parents are.
Most of the time I have talks with my parents, and I genuinely want to tell them stories what is going on with my day. I would talk then suddenly my mother/father would cut me off and then suddenly start telling me story of what happened to her day. Don't get me wrong, I love hearing what happens to her class, or what my father did, or what she's planning to cook. Like I said I love talking with them but when I want to tell them story of what happened to my day, I want them to listen until I finish telling them my story. Also, would it hurt them to just listen to the stories instead of bombarding me with all these opinions and criticisms?
When my depression and anxiety was as its peak they would complain with me not sharing enough stories to them, how secretive I am, how I keep bottling up my feelings. But if you were in my position, would you bother telling them what happened to your day when you know all you are going to get is them telling you how you are wrong, cutting you off, and getting angry for no reason. I see myself as a hindrance every time I tell them one of my stories because that's how they portray it!
Third would be my unreliable moronic brother
My parents are partly to blame for this one. We are Asian and at this point if you don't know that then read my other stories. Anyway, since I am Asian we have this twisted tradition where the eldest is the most responsible out of all siblings and the brother can be as lax and as unreliable they can. This is a major problem to me. Like I said I have unreasonable parents. If there is a household chore that my brother failed to accomplish, I would be scolded alongside him. If my brother came home late, I would receive a lecture alongside him. If my brother made a mistake, I would be nagged alongside him. You get the picture.
Back then I used to not do much household chores because I was very very busy in school but I would always do my best to contribute to the household one way or another. I would be quiet with my contributions. I would do my best to avoid coming home late or giving my parents a hard time [which is not easy considering I have a father that is really really really really unreasonable-there's no other adjective to explain it]. Nowadays, my schedule is more free than it was last year and whenever I have a free afternoon or morning I would do my best to clean the house. Today was the last draw for my brother.
We always have to clean the sink and refill our pitchers and water jugs with water from the water dispenser so that we have cold water readily available stored in our refrigerator. Coming from a huge family [not many, fat] we are very thirsty people and my brother is one of them. Most of the time I would do my best to refill the pitchers or water jugs but to everybody in this house they would waste all that water thinking that it would magically refill itself. This is very worrisome because I have terrible headaches and I want to drink cold water as I please every time I get home, and this is more worrisome because my father scolds me for not refilling the pitcher mugs.
I don't get it. I can't sleep or even take a nap when I know I have a household chore left undone, how can my brother sleep despite knowing he'll probably disappoint someone from not finishing a household chore.
Fun fact: I actually cut myself today 6 times after I started seeing red. This is how I cope with stress.
This is just part 1
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