January 29th, always have back up

Well,

On top of dealing with my own feelings, my family gives me plenty of opportunity to utilize my meditation experience and the teachings of the Buddha to get through this life. No family is without some form of drama. My family however seems to be a constant mixture of soap opera and talk shows. I swear I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried, and fun fact, I wanted to be a writer back in elementary school. I even took it as far has writing my own action film in middle school, but other activities start to interest me and I scrapped the script. But I digress.

My relationship with my mom has been really interesting. At first, she was a source of wisdom and compassion, thought she was the best mom ever. And what kid doesn’t think that at first about their mom? In the realm of Vietnamese Buddhism, it’s a saying that the first two Buddha’s you meet in this life are your mother and father. At first, without any experience of my own, it proved to be true. They taught me how to speak, how to walk, how to hold a spoon, things that seem simple now that I’m grown, but back then I didn’t have any knowledge or experience so I relied on them to show me the way. My mom is very caring and kind, and has a really big heart, but as I have grown up, I begun to see that this model person that I thought highly of wasn’t without faults of their own. They started to become more noticeable as I matured into a semi functional adult. But who isn’t without imperfection? 

As time has gone on, it seems that the dynamic of the relationship has shifted drastically. The once source of knowledge and experience has now shifted the other direction. Instead of me being reminded of being understanding, I have uttered on more than one occasion “ You have to understand their point of view” more than I’d like. I’ve gone out and experienced a lot within the realm of Indiana, while it seems her world has shrunken, almost forming a wall.  Which I don’t quite understand from someone who spoke about the things in the world we could see. I guess that was reserved to us, possibly because she never envisioned exploring the world herself. Maybe because the world scares her, I don’t know. But I’ve never given up that her clear perception isn’t still there, it’s just hiding behind the fear of being alone in the world . No one is truly alone, on this planet with billions of sentient beings, there’s no possible way to truly be alone. Loneliness, however, is quite a different story. We can feel lonely and not be alone at all. Likewise, there reverse is true as well, we can be alone, but not feel lonely at all. Perception is key.

Now, it’s not that she is incapable of processing reality as it is. Reality just doesn’t agree with what she thinks it should be. She’s done more than her fair share of dirt, but people are people and we do funny things. Drama and gossip seem to be the things that are her guilty pleasure. Everybody has them, but when you try to justify being involved when you have no business being involved, there is a definite issue. When people ask me for information, I give what I know, that’s about it. If you ask my opinion, I’ll give it, and leave it at that. Not her. She has to be in the thick of it. Give advice to what should be done and how she would do it. Traits every mother has really, but where they diverge is that she holds on to it for years. But it is definitely more pronounced now that my younger brother is currently having a crisis.

My younger brother and I have always been really close until he got married. Then it was non existent. For several years we didn’t communicate. Not from his own choice, but his wife. There’s a lot that goes into that warrants a separate blog post that won’t be posted anywhere but in this blog. His current situation is crazy and the writers of Jerry Springer couldn’t write anything even close to what he’s going through. His biggest crutch is also his greatest quality: he wants to be involved in his children’s lives. He’s clever, intelligent, witty, but doesn’t know how to apply his skills to be profitable or of benefit to his family. Part of the problem is that he has no high school diploma and hasn’t attempted to get it because of, well, that’s another story too. A lot of what is going on in his life could be entire blog series in and of itself.

There’s a lot of things I won’t go into detail with the current situations of everyone going through respectively. I just know that family has always been a pressure point for myself because I have been engrained with the traditional Asian values about family and how important it is to have harmony in it. I’ve worked hard at trying to maintain the balance, holding the tide of of storms and the earthquakes that occur throughout life. And I’m exhausted from it. I look haggard most days, like a General that’s been tasked with defense of a siege wall that’s under constant attack.

A conversation that sticks out with me is one I had yesterday with my father as we are driving around Wichita. He was showing me the old places he’s lived, a house that he is rehabbing to rent out or give to me should a marriage be in the works when I return to the US.

“One thing that you always have to have in life is back up. I feel bad for your little brother and sister because I not there. Your mom can’t help them. You always need back up.”

And he’s absolutely right . Having a stable support system is critical for surviving life as we know it. Even within different faith traditions, community serves as a source of strength and comfort in times and distress. I can definitely see it’s importance in the Vietnamese culture from my own experience. Family is incredibly important. It’s the first community that we come into contact with in life. For a lot of people, they tend to forget that, and treat their family as enemies, and we can see that all throughout the history of the world. Not just within royal families or families that have historical relevance, but within our family histories.

Functionally my back up has been for the most part my older sister and older brother. We’ve had our ups and downs for sure, but we’ve always been able to set aside any idealogical difference and work together for the common good for all parties involved. I’ve had more support outside my own family as well, but that’s a list a mile long and too many names to remember. My own definition of family goes beyond just blood. Family is those that are there to share our triumphs, console us when we feel defeated, and to knock us upside the head when we are being stubborn or not willing to see the reality of the situations that we are putting ourselves into.

The crux of the issues that other members of the family are facing is that they feel as if they are alone. But they aren’t, they’ve only forgotten that they have back up...