Pretentious, Self-Righteous Essays

Growing up in a multicultural society such as that in Etobicoke-Lakeshore, and then going to the University of Toronto to study Math, I was never really made to feel like a minority.  It wasn’t until I started working full-time in an office that I did.  I still remember the event that did it.  It was a birthday party – one of my associates had invited me to a birthday party.  The party was to begin at a bar where the attendees were to get wasted before going to a club later on in the evening.  I showed up alone.  I didn’t know anyone besides the co-worker that invited me.  I began to introduce myself to the other guests.  At that point in time, I hadn’t yet quite put my finger on what about each person it exactly was that I disliked, but I was certain that I wasn’t enjoying anyone’s company.  It wasn’t until the following exchange that I figured it out:

Guest: “Does it feel strange being the only guest who isn’t white?”

I looked at the group and I realized that I was the only person who wasn’t white.  I not only failed to notice, but failed to be bothered … up until that point.

Guest: “You know, I have a cousin who lives in a small town near England who has never seen a black person in real life before.  Can you imagine?”

Me: “You know, I have a cousin in the Philippines who lives in a small town far from the main cities who has never seen anyone besides Filipinos. ”

She looked at me and smiled pleasantly, so as to agree that our cousins truly were unfortunate.  It saddened me to see that the message I was trying to send had just gone over her head.  At the time, I was disappointed, but whenever I retell this story, I laugh.  I laugh so hard … until I cry.

“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.]

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.