Yes, we’re talking about family gaain. It’s the holiday sesaon, which can make or break a family. There are so many expectiatons during this time that rarely get met. I honestly believe that if people just chilled the fuck out and thought, “We’ll hang and have fun no matter what”, so much family drama would be avoided.
But faaaaamily.
And Anut Ethel expects that there be three different kinds of pumpkin pie while Aunt Mabel will chew you out if you dare bring cranberries because that’s her thing. Uncle Bill is just there for the turkey and the Lions game, yo. Whereas the cousins just run around and play hide and seek while they wait for dinner to be served.
That’s not how any of my childhood Thanksgivings went, by the way, because I am a second generation Taiwanese American and we carved out (get it?) our own holiday traditions. I don’t remember what we did for Thanksgiving. I’m sure there was turkey and my mother made this cranberry jello salad with Cool Whip and marshmallows, mandarin oranges, and walnuts. It was really good.
Side note: My ex-SIL held a grudge for years apparently that my mother brought that to our first shared Thanksgiving because to her cranberries means just cranberries with a bit of sugar for the sauce. It’s her favorite part of the dinner and not to have it really ruined Thanksgiving for her.
I asked my brother why she didn’t just get some regular cranberries if it bothered her so much. She had assumed that was what our mother was bringing and didn’t buy any. That makes sense. And I do get that if you have a tradition, it can be hard when that tradition doesn’t happen. So, yeah, I can understand being upset for a day or two, but to hold a grudge for years? That’s my ex-SIL, for you. She can hold a grudge longer than some of my relationships lasted. I have to respect it because I have held a grudge or two in my time. They tend to fade out, though, because, well, I get bored. Also, why do I want to think about someone who I’m over?
Here’s the thing. I am very good at giving the benefit of the doubt until I’m not. When that line is crossed, then I’m done. No more benefit of the doubt given. When I’m done, I’m done.
My last therapist told me sternly that wasn’t a good thing. I retorted, “I know. But it’s who I am.” Her point was that I should set boundaries earlier, and she is right. That way I wouldn’t explode later and go scorched earth.
I’ve gotten better at setting boundaries except with my parents. My eternal bane. When I was in my twenties, I was a hot mess. I was a complete and utter mess. There was a semester in college when I was disassociating on the daily. I had anorexia and bulimia, and my mother only cared that my waist was tinier than hers. She was jealous, you see, because she had been trying to lose five pounds since she came to America and discovered butter pecan ice cream.
I lost my virginity when I was 20 (well, technically. P-I-V. I had done everything but penetration up until then), and lost my religion at the same time. I was raised in a fundie evangelical Christian family that harped over and over again how having premarital sex would send me to hell (then it was holy with angels singing once you get married). I cannot tell you how primary this message was, especially to someone who was AFAB.
When I finally had sex for the first time, it was fucking amazing (pun intended). It felt so good; it absolutely sent me. I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. And I realized that my church had been actively and malignantly lying to me for my whole life. And, the thing is, once the man behind the curtain is revealed as a fraud, there is no going back. Once I realized how thoroughly they lied to me about sex, how the hell could I believe them about anything else?
Back to family. At the end of my twenties, the leaders of the youth group for our parent church (in LA) came to MN. My mom cried to them about how I had strayed from the church. They crowded around me (which already freaked me out) and asked if they could pray for me. I did not want them to, but I didn’t feel I could say no. Then they askd if they could lay their hands on me, and I found the strength to say no to that. I hate being touched by people I don’t know or like, and my skin crawled at their request.
They put their hands around me (‘Stop touching me’ ‘I’m not touching you!’) and started praying at me. And I mean at me. Praying that God would take me back into the fold. It was a wild experience and a surreal one. Then, one woman started speaking in tongues, and I completely left my body. I just noped the hell out of there mentally.
In what world would one think that would be the way to encourage someone to return to religion? One in which that’s all you know and everyone you know thinks the way you do. I know that. I get that. But it scarred me to the point of knowing I would never, ever, EVER go back to that church. Full disclosure: Not that I would have in the first place, but that was hammering the last nail in the coffin.
And that’s my mom. She couldn’t see that maybe someone would have a different point of view about her religion and she was going to do whatever she colud to drag me back. Many years later, my father said to me, “You know, Minna, what Mom’s one wish is?” in a serious tone. I braced myself because I knew it wasn’t going to be good. If he was bringing it up to me, it had to do with me. That’s just how my family rolls. It wouldn’t be that she got to go to Spain or something like that. No, it would be something about how I was failing them.
“Her biggest wish is for you to return to the church. It makes her so sad that you don’t.”
There it was. When I managed to say I wasn’t going to recturn to church, he asked if I couldn’t try. Try what? To believe in a deity I didn’t believe in? By the way, the reason my father is a Christian (in his own words) is because he can give his problems to God and then forget about them. Ther ewas a time my father was on trial for fraud (which he didn’t do, but he was careless in the things he signed), and that was the only time he wanted to go to church and pray to God. Because he wanted something from God. That’s my father in a nutshell. He’s only interested in others for what they can do for him. I’ll say it for the millionth time. He is the classic narcissist.
I finally told my father that if my mother’s biggest problem is that I’m not a Christian, then she’s very lucky. Yes, I was being snarky, but I was also being truthful. Look. I can understand that to religious people, it’s imperative that their loved ones be ‘saved’ or whatever it’s called in their vernacular. But, at some point, you have to let. it. go. If I’m going to hell, I’m going to hell (which, by the way, I do not believe in. I died. Twice. There is no hell. And if there is one, it should not be for something as victimless as enjoying hot premarital sex). I am not going to believe in a God in order to escape hell. I tried that for many years. And I was told that couldn’t be the reason I believed in God in order for it to count! What fresh bullshit is that? Believe in God so you won’t go to Hell, but you can’t believe in God for that reason?
Anyway. I know I’m a total failure to my mother. She views everything I am as a rebuke to who she is. Which, I mean, she’s not wrong, but she’s not right, either. She’s right that I am not anytihng she is. She’s wrong in that it’s not because of her. It’s just who I am. I am not girly. At all. I have no interest in typically feminine things and never had. What’s funny is that she’s not that feminine, either. She hates cooknig and sewing, though she felt compelled to do both. She likes sports and doens’t wear much makeup. Yet, I’m supposed to be girly and feminine.
It’s similar to how her mother was the first woman to attend a certain college in Tokyo and the first female senator (the equivalent) in her prefect, and, yet, she only extolled the virtues of the men in her husband’s lineage and wished my brother and his fiancee (before they married) many baby boys. She was a brusque and stern woman, but she clearly disapproved of women.
The sexism in Taiwanese culture is very real and deep, but different than American sexism. So I got to experience both.
One of the best things my last therapist said to me after I was bemoaning how much I had failed as a daughter, “Minna, you are not the daughter your mother wants, but she is not the mother you need.”
That helped. A lot. I am running long yet again. Will right more in the next post.