Talk about being difficult.
Pure rottenness; that's what has been coming out of her mouth these few days. Every single word, every single expression, pure rottenness.Maybe it's the lack of medication, maybe it's PMS, maybe she's in a bad mood, but whatever it is, my mother has been in a foul mood ever since she came back. She was already in such a mood earlier, but now its just worse.
Last week, when my girlfriends younger brother was staying over, she did everything she could to chase him out of the house. When I wasn't around her house, he went to my room and asked him to leave, scaring the poor fellow. Then, she took their slippers and threw it out of the house. When I saw it, I lost my temper, and forced her to apologise to him. She refused, but I continued scolding her, forcing her to apologise. She eventually did, but grudgingly and without any sincerity.
These few days, she has refused to eat the food I buy her, accusing me of trying to bribe her. She then launches into countless countless attacks on me and my girlfriend. Its hard trying to keep my cool in the face of such vicious personal attacks. At times, I loose my temper and argue on with her, but its trying to talk to a radio, you just cant get it to listen. Furthermore, she looses her temper without much provocation, screaming and shouting at me in turn. When I try to reason with her, she just shuts her ears or goes into another attack. When I ask her to listen she says she doesn’t want to listen to me.
Yesterday night, when I came back, I smelt something strange, as if something was on the stove. True enough, she had to stove on, left unattended. She tried boiling water to drink (even when there was water readily available) and forgot about it. By the time I returned, the water had all but dried up, and the bottom of the pot was RED, like metal about to melt. Who knows how long it had been left like that! I came into her room, told her nicely that she forgot to switch off the water, and she goes into one of her rages, saying that I am just finding fault with her. She insisted that she did switch it off. When I eventually showed it to her, she just said “Serves him right.” The pot didn’t belong to us. It belonged to my friend, who cooked in our place some time ago. She said that it served him right since he didn’t take home his pot sooner. Now that it was black and burnt, it was his own fault. Tell me what am I supposed to say or do it the face of such attitude? I just said to her that her actions are her own responsibility and how dare she try to put the blame on someone else? Why was she boiling water in the first place when we have enough clean filtered water? She said the water makes her giddy.
I received a call from her old church friend who wants to come visit her this Saturday. I told them that my mother was in a relapse, and that I had no idea what they can expect if they came. They were only too familiar with the situation, having dealt with my mother before. When I informed my mother, she again just screamed at me, saying that I shouldn’t be talking to her friends, that I would brainwash them.
My lungs have been sore from all the shouting matches with her. My heart is boiling, and at the moment, am just soooo angry at her. She feels not a pinch of remorse or regret for what she says or do. I know I cant really blame her for what she does; she is ill. But that doesn’t stop my heart from aching. She says that I am disrespectful. She says that I only know how to take care of my girlfriend, and that I treat her like shit and I neglect my family. On the other hand, my girlfriend feels that I always give a lot of face to my family and none to her, and my priority is always my family. My friend thinks that things would be better if only I learnt how to treat my mother better.
What am I to do? Nothing I do seem to be right. I admit that I am not exactly very gentle when dealing with my mother. I have neither the patience nor energy to try to sweet talk her. To me, that has proved to be ineffective long ago. I admit that I do care a lot for my girlfriend and that I do the best I can for her. I admit that I give priority to my mother and her needs, and whenever there involves compromise, I would ask my girlfriend to do it. Have I done wrong? Have I really failed so spectacularly?
And that’s just one part of my problems. I have exams looming near, and true to Murphy’s law, something just has to come up. Just last month, my father and brother had to cough out RM2300 for my application to university. The both of them had to dig deep to give me the money and as a result, we are on a major shortage of cash. The bills have been piling up for 3 months; long overdue. My father banked in RM450 just the other day to use this month. Of which, they instructed RM150 be used to pay the bills. That leaves me with RM300. Minus RM100 I owe my friends (Christmas shopping) and I am down to RM200. Minus petrol money, minus money needed to print, copy and binding hard cover copies of my dissertation, other miscellaneous expenses etc, and I am left with…lets see… around…. 50 bucks? For a month? What am I supposed to eat? Grass? Even that’s not free.
I plan to take up a study loan to fund my 3months in the UK. But here’s the ironic part. To be eligible for the loan (which is a non-profit corporation), you need to be a member of the corporation with a minimum number of shares. So not only do you have to find a guarantor, you need to pay to buy their company shares, which amount to RM1800 to receive their loan, and its due end of this month, smack in the middle of my exams. Its just plain stupid if you ask me. But apparently, due to some legislation governing non profit corporations, that’s how it has to be. The whole point of a taking a loan is because you don’t have the cash. If I had enough petty cash to buy shares, would I really need a loan? Someone should look into that.
Forgive me if I am talking like the whole world is black and grey. It has been feeling that way for quite some time for me now. The euphoria of Christmas and New Year have quickly ended, and it’s very much back to the battleground for me, charging head on into the line of fire.
The love of money is the root of all evil, so the bible teaches us. Is it really? Is it really wrong to want money? They say money can’t buy happiness. Can it really not? It can’t buy health, love, and dignity. But without cash, they certainly are taken away from you. Money buys you good treatment when you are sick, money buys you proper cloths to wear, money affords you to buy the things you need most. You need medicine for that illness? You need new cloths to replace those old torn jeans? It involves money. I wore my last pair of jeans so many times over the year that it finally started to tear. Then I discovered that I couldn’t afford a new one. So I continued wearing it, and wore long shirts to cover the tear. It’s embarrassing when friends ask why am I wearing torn cloths. Having money won’t guarantee you happiness, but lacking money certainly ensures some measure of heartache and difficulty. Suddenly, I no longer gaze harshly at those labelled materialistic. You never miss the water until the well runs dry.
That’s enough ranting from me for now. I’m getting hungry. I better go pluck some grass outside before people start stepping on it, or worse the cat comes by.
Bon appetite
posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 2:37 pm
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