I have a lot of things in mind. I cannot do my tasks at work because I can’t calm down my head running like clockwork. I feel like I have lost myself a long time ago. When I was 5? 8? maybe when I first fell in love. back when I was little, it was difficult for me to get along with the neighborhood kids, well even with my classmates. I grew up in a very hostile yet inexpressive family. I cannot count just how many times did we move places, strange places we were forced to call “home”. I want to lay down my life story. Raw and honest. this is my truth.
My mother had her first child when she was just 21. I remember feeling confused because my older brother has other sisters/brothers yet I can’t call them mine. I remember asking why does he have another family other than ours. But my story does not start here, bear with me. Our family (mother’s side) would always say my brother isn’t a crime of lust, I didn’t understand any of their explanations. Truth is, my brother’s father, a lawyer way past his prime, has a family (a wife and kids). Up to this very day, I don’t know where it started, My mother would tell different stories, I don’t know if it is to confuse me even more; enough to shut my curious mouth. But one thing I know is, the lawyer’s first wife is cool with my mom. I heard at some point they became friends. She died from cancer when I was still very young, but her children (my brother’s siblings) stayed connected with us. They are nice even to me, they treated me like their own, even up to this day.
My mother is her family’s breadwinner. She’s used to different jobs to the point where the line between right and wrong becomes blurry. She would do everything to provide for her younger sister who was still in college and their youngest, my uncle, who “lost” his path at a very young age. (He’s okay now, don’t worry.) My mother’s mother, (my grandma) relies on mom for finances. My grandma lost her love even before I was born... My grandma and pops were already on a very unstable marriage probably even before my brother was born. Love left their home a long time ago when my pops would rather buy alcohol than provide food for his family of three children. My grandpa’s family is rich, but they don’t treat him equally, and they loathed my family.
My mother grew up fighting for survival. She gave pieces of herself for her family but my mother’s family would say otherwise. They would say that she’s a very angry person, that she’s never soft. I guess I understand her a little bit now, although she’ll always be a mystery to me.
My earliest memories are not child-like. My mother’s family left me to my mom when I was just a baby. My mother couldn’t provide for them, being a new mom, she couldn’t go to work. I forgot to note, my grandma raised my brother as her own. To this day, my brother refers to our grandma as his mother. I know it’s confusing, believe me, I could not understand why my brother called our lola “mama” and yet we’re siblings and I’m not lola’s “anak”. It was a very confusing deal for a child.
I grew up with my mother until I was sent to live with my lola, mom’s sister and brother, and my own brother. Mom had to go somewhere far to work. I remember how hard it was for me, everyday my lola and our family would attack me as if they see my mom in me, or her poor choices. I grew up in a feud between my mom and her family and it’s as if I would be killed if I don’t pick sides. I hated my mother, then I hated everyone else. I grew up faking my feelings although it wasn’t intentional.
My brother and I are polar opposites. Back then, when my mom was far away and I was left to live with her family, my lola would always make me feel like I’m just a visitor. They obviously loved my brother more, my mom’s sister and brother would often display affection and play with him while I watch. I didn’t know the word was jealousy, but I became very lonesome and bitter. My brother had playmates and he was allowed to do things he like, eat first than I do, choose films, tv channels, he had toys I was forbidden to touch. I grew up wishing I don’t live with them, or that I have a different mom. “If only she wasn’t my mother, I wouldn’t be suffering right now” this sentence painted my childhood.
My brother and I went to a private school. I was in elementary, he was already in high school. Still, I didn’t have many friends unlike him. Maybe I just didn’t know how to be a normal, playful child. I didn’t know what it’s like to be playful. I lived in a warzone.
My mother stayed away until something happened to their youngest, my uncle. I heard people are looking for him with the intention of harming/killing him because he did something to a girl. I think he broke up with her after something happened to them. My mother came back home to clear his name. She talked to the girl’s family.
Things were smooth for a short while. My lola put up a noodles shop right in front of our school. My mom and auntie would stay there and work. By this time, mama had nothing (again), she left her job in Manila for my uncle. After school, my brother and I would immediately go to our noodles shop. I remember being so hungry and asking for a bowl, my lola would ask my mom to pay for it but since mama had nothing, she would shake her head and look at me shamefully. I was a kid, I didn’t understand any of it. I would ask again and my lola would say “wait for your brother, pray that he’ll spare you some” as she hands my brother a bowl of hot, mouth-watering noodles. I watch with a growling stomach.
After a while, my innately angry mom lost her patience. There was an incident that resulted into a fist fight, except the first fight isn’t really a fight but just a bunch of bullies ganging up on 1 person. My brother punched my mom a lot of times while my auntie and lola restrained her. I can only stand up crying, I was so young, anemic and undernourished. My mother had to be hospitalized but since we had nothing, she had to keep up a strong faith to survive. She had to “fix” it with warm towels and home remedies. We (again) moved out. Of course, after what happened.
My mom and I stayed in her relatives in a slum. It was a squatter’s area. Smelly, lots of violence around, distressing. I was in third grade.
Although it was probably the poorest place I’ve been, I cannot deny that it was also the happiest I’ve been. for a while, I made myself lots of friends. We would do garbage works, pick up bottles, anything that we could sell so we can buy something to fill our ever-hungry stomachs. My mother would sell peanut turon and longganisa while my friends and I would join dance contests to earn. My mother would make me eat salted rice because she had no money to buy us viands. I could not imagine the things she had to endure to keep on sending me to a private school. I would often catch her crying in the middle of the night. It was nightmare. That place toughened me up more than any thing ever could.
It was then when my mother decided to come back to my father. I didn’t know anything about him yet, he was just a face I rarely see in rotten photographs. My mom and I boarded a bus to somewhere unknown to both of us. I guess she ran out of options.
My father was a drug addict. He went to our place to buy some drugs, it’s where he met mama. He brought mama to Manila where he lived with his family. My mother was said to be schooling (nursing) when they ran away. This is the reason why her family hated me. They see her irresponsibility painted on my face.
My father was too broke, lost, confused, sad, angry to be a good father. Later on, they couldn’t stand each other anymore and so my mother went back home to her family.
When mom and I first set foot on father’s home place, I didn’t know what to expect. I was excited, mama said I’ll meet my father. I was nine.
When I met his family, they told me and my mom that dad has impregnated someone and that my mother shouldn’t mind, after all they were not married yet. My mother had to think through it and figured, she’ll agree to a wedding so she can do something about the mistress. They got married, the mistress lost the child she was carrying, and my parents got along for a while. My life changed drastically, my dad had lots of money and for the first time, I knew what it’s like to buy and eat the things I like. I wish I could stop writing here. I wish it ended here.
Lots of fights occurred and my mom was forced to send me back to her homeland to finish my high school. If I would include the things that happened to me during this chapter, it would take a day to finish this. So. My high school life was just the same as the previous paragraphs of this narrative, it was the only life I knew.
My parents picked me up and kept me back here (dad’s place) to finish college. Fights between them remained explosive. I’d like to think people were not born bearing the values they have as they grow up but it is impossible not to label my parents as innately angry persons. They hated each other more than they loved me and their relationship.
I finished college and I saw what I was too late to see in my lola’s marriage. The part when love leaves their eyes and walk out the door of their so-called “home”. I saw my parents fell on each other’s worst side. I felt the atmosphere in our home shifting into poison. Gravity left our home and we became bodies floating farther away from each other.
My parents lost it. My mom has been moving places ever since while I work and stay with my friends. I’d like to say this is my form of escape but it is not. I would still love to stay with my mother, her heart lost joy back when she was still young. I want to always be there for her but truth is, my mother is one of the primary reasons why I am clinically diagnosed with mental illness. Her footsteps and voice would rattle me, her aggressiveness is an infectious disease, her hate and anger and bitterness are unparalleled. Truth is, I love my mother so much I sacrificed my own mental health for her for years, but I am growing older every day and I now know that I am the person I will be spending the rest of my life with. I love her so much to love myself too.
Both sides of my family are dormant volcanoes. They are both disasters. I am not the most romantic person but I believe my parents could’ve made it work, if only animosity wasn’t passed on to them like a family heirloom. I promised myself a long time ago never to turn out like any of my parents, although they also have qualities I’d like to have. My father’s tenacity, strong will, and resourcefulness, and my mother’s bravery, generosity, and persistence.
I am just my parents’ daughter. I am my own person. I will consciously choose my peace. I was born and raised to stand and survive. No amount of heartache can break me into pieces reflecting my parents’ worst attributes. Nonetheless, I am still learning to do all of these and life is always unpredictable. I have to forgive myself when I can’t be the best always. I have to be my own lover and friend. My life has been a downward spiral ever since I was born, it’s time to slowly climb up.
