Pretentious, Self-Righteous Essays

“The castle’s come down times before on many nights much like this night.”

I was 13 and my grandmother was 78 when she passed away.  It was a December when the ambulance came in the middle of the night to take her away.  She was unconscious and remained in the ICU for a couple of months.  I remember spending Christmas in the ICU.  When the money got tight because of all of the extra taxis getting home (we didn’t own a car), we took the bus.  And when we could no longer afford even that, we walked.

She was really weak and had been losing her memory for perhaps a year prior to her going comatose.  I remember being about 12 when she was no longer able to do all of the things that she liked to do on her own, such as garden and cook, and even longer since she’d done things that she didn’t like to do, like walk me home from school or play with me.  She was so serious.

My sister and dad suffer from the same core of afflictions as my grandmother.  Perhaps about a year prior to my grandmother’s admittance to the ICU, my dad had been going through the worst case of his eczema.  At the time, it was the first I’d ever seen it flare up at all.  He couldn’t move without making his skin crack.  I’d seen it with Marlene throughout our childhood, and it was a real surprise to me when I saw him with it.  Anyway, after a while without any improvement, our doctor had him hospitalized.  He was eventually able to come home and we all took care of him.  The doctors had been unable to pinpoint the cause.  All we knew was what we always knew: that it was an allergic reaction.  We blamed his work.  He worked in the factory of a printing company.  The company paid out disability for a while, but eventually stopped.  He wasn’t sick enough to get Ontario Disability Benefits, but was not well enough to make it through a full work day at a new job without being sent home because his employer could see that he couldn’t handle it. This after years of OT and hauling himself across the city by public transit to get the bills paid.  He was only in his 50’s, and he didn’t know how he would make it to retirement.

My mom couldn’t do much better.  She had been laid off from her job years earlier after she took bereavement time to attend her brother’s funeral in the Philippines. She returned to be laid off.  It made for an awkward situation for my sister who would wind up – by a twisted stroke of fate – doing her OAC Co-Op term in our mom’s old department with our mom’s former co-workers.  Anyway, my mom was well into her 50’s by then, so being hired for a long-term continuing position was difficult.  She wasn’t physically equipped to do labour, but she could do a lot of things, and I know she always tried.  Primarily, she did temp work in accounting.  And she put her crocheting skills to work making kippot for some evil man she called “Barrack” who was so rude to her and made her cry that even though we needed the money, we begged her to stop making them.  She even did call centre work in the evenings – there was no shortage of call centre work.  Out of an eagerness for workplace resiliency, I learned to do it myself.  I learned a lot of things from my mom.  Because who knew?  Maybe there would come a time when it was the only opportunity I had at my immediate disposal to make ends meet during times of crisis.  (For the record, such times existed.)   So she applied for hundreds of jobs and got a lot of interviews.  It was hard to watch her.  She was the sort of person who identified herself by her job.  And with every failed opportunity came more and more frustration.

It’s hard to pinpoint the moment things became irreparable for us as a family.  There were hints of self-destruction much earlier than this.  However, I do remember being 12 and being proud as the low-points brought us closer together.  And then I remember turning 16 and writing The Dancing Princess.  It’s scary now when I look back and read A Peek Through Tinted Glassed and The Days of Grey – words I strung together when I was 18 and 20, respectively.

I’m fine now.  My biggest problem then was that I couldn’t control anything.  Now I control everything.  It’s exhausting, and I get really frustrated on days like today when people assume that just because I’m the younger daughter, that I hold no responsibility.  I’m irritable enough without having to deal with ignorant people thinking they have me and my situation pegged.

[Today, today is a special day.  Today I posted explicitly how I felt about something.]

It just occurred to me that today is the 14-year anniversary of the day I started dating my first boyfriend!  At least,  I think he was my first boyfriend.  At the very least, he was the first boyfriend who ever told me that he loved me and have the feeling requited.

And contrary to what you would probably expect, I won’t recount how it was that we fell in and out of “love”.  I’m here only to remark on the sweet innocence that it is to be in love at the age of thirteen.  I still remember how my heart raced when in his presence, melted when I heard him speak my name, and stopped whenever our eyes met.  I remember the first time we held hands when we walked home together, our first embrace on Valentine’s Day, our first slow dance (to SWV’s Weak) at my best friend’s birthday party, and our first kiss on a Spring afternoon in the park nearby our school.  Every word, every glance, and every touch was so meaningful.  Relationships haven’t been quite as simple ever since.

I imagine one day I’ll experience such rapture again, and until then I’ll fantasize about it like a 13-year year old schoolgirl would.

NB:  I’m not still interested in him.

In the eighth grade, I wrote and recited a speech on Dating in the public speaking competition.  It was more like an insightful comedy act where I covered such topics as asking someone out on a date, telling your parents about the date, and dealing with gossip.  Within my school, I placed 1st and was given the opportunity to compete in Regionals.  So, I did.

I wish I had had enough wherewithal to have expected the poor reception of my speech, and that my school administrators could have had enough courtesy to have warned me.  Perhaps they didn’t want me to backout, realizing that my ignorance of prejudices could endow me with confidence as I recited my speech in front of a very conservative panel.

But it was certainly a learning experience to have been handed my ribbon for my participation, and have a woman that I looked up to whisper a snide remark into my ear as she shook my hand for the photo.  After all, I’ve now had the pleasure of having a lifetime of these moments, and I don’t foresee an end to them any time soon.

2009 ended with me spending money at a rate never before reached in my life. Contrary to whatever perception you may have of me, I’m cheap.  I hate spending money.   But I closed off 2009 with a 2-week trip to California … I spent money … and I don’t hate myself for it [most of the time].  It was a great experience.  It wasn’t over the top.  It was nice, and it was worth it.

I think it’s because I was so poor growing up.  We could barely afford the bare necessities, let alone a 2-week vacation in California.  I knew very few things regarding what I wanted out of life, but if there was ever anything, it was financial security.  I never aimed to be rich – I aimed for living comfortably and the [near] impossibility of being poor.   I didn’t want to hit 60 and wonder how I’d afford to live the rest of my life.  This was especially because I didn’t imagine having a husband or children, and only have immediate family here in Canada.  I know I was a child, but I was tired of the ups and downs.  I saw the gain from taking risks, and I saw the rewards for adopting moderate strategies.  This is why I couldn’t stand the thought of going into debt for my impractical university education [yes, yes, I had a scholarship, but it wasn't enough money for living expenses].  This is why I’ve planned for retirement since I was 19.  I can only bring myself to invest money – not gamble it.  Yes, I know what I’m saying about my university education.  Hitting 19 and realizing that there exist a plethora of employers [not the least of which being the University] that pay at least $50K for hard-working, intelligent but uneducated individuals was a pivotal point in my life.  By the age of 20, I could either have been able to help cover my family’s living expenses and had a positive net worth, or been a liability with a negative net worth.  And since there was urgency for me to reach a higher earning potential early, is it really surprising that I made the decisions that I made?

Anyway, no matter how technically secure my life is, I think I’m always going to feel like the poor person I was when I was growing up.  There were times when I was probably just 1 month away from living on the street, and I never forget that.

Ever since I watched Who’s The Boss?, I wanted to own a Jag.  I didn’t know what a Jag was, or how it looked, but Angela Bower had one, and she epitomized everything I wanted to grow up to be: beautiful, intelligent, successful, and independent.

I’m twenty-seven, and I drive a silver 2004 Nissan Altima.  It’s technically my second car purchase, but I count it as my first.  When I started my search, I was looking for fuel economy, and I walked out with an affordable car that felt luxurious because of its size and features.  I fell in love with her during the test drive.

I guess we never really know what we want until we get there.  Given the opportunity to trade-in my vehicle for either a Jag or a car with better fuel economy, I wouldn’t.  Somewhere along the line, she just became everything I wanted.  I’m sure some of that is comfort, but a lot of that is pleasant surprise.

When I was eight, I would tell my friends that I measured the strength of a friendship through its ability to continually recreate itself.  Though I still believe this, I propounded it at the time because I had several friends that I didn’t like very much that each called me their best friend.  I used to hope that each of those friends would keep my words in mind when I stopped talking to them, we lost touch and then moved on, but I know better.

I also recall constantly being pestered with “tests” of my friendship.  I would be asked to recite such silly things as one’s favourite colour as a testament to the friendship that we shared.  I always failed.  I thought it as ridiculous then as I do now, except back then I would have (and had) enumerated all of the reasons why.  I still don’t feel apologetically about that.

Up until MF, I had no romantic (in the idealistic yet impractical sense) notions of friendship.  I considered them necessary in that we’re social creatures and require them, but felt that any particular instances of it are arbitrary and occur only out of circumstance.  I suppose I still feel mostly the same way.  (I don’t mean to diminish any of the circumstantial friendships I now hold.)  In spite of our atheism, I still felt romantically (yes, still in the idealistic yet impractical sense) towards my friendships within MF.  We weren’t your stereotypical group of buddies.  We were MF: rude with no particular inclinations to be kind, thoughtful, or generous to/with each other.  We didn’t celebrate birthdays, or holidays.  We didn’t consider each other’s feelings.  We solved problems, and argued (in the strict definition of the term).  We were honest about our ugliest opinions in that we unabashedly shared them.  We encouraged and hoped more people would join us and do the same.  It was my ideal.  My dream set of friends: people with different opinions who proudly and confidently shared those opinions, and who could count on getting thorough feedback on those opinions in the hopes of teaching/learning something.  It was cathartic.  And now it’s over.

There was a particular “friend” from my childhood who accused me of treating my friendship with him as a “commodity” (his words, poor choice).  In particular, he accused me of not caring.  I can see and admit now that how I treated him was completely unfairly:  I should have told him from the outset that I didn’t value his company in the slightest and spared both he and I the subsequent lie that was our “friendship” during our high school years.