Random Ramblings

For no reason besides me being my father’s daughter, I was scolded as if I was a slave by a relative. A minute later, the same relative was utterly concerned over my cousin cooking – as if it is the first time in history someone is – and told my cousin to be careful not to be scalded.

Earlier in the day, my landlord’s family was nice enough to call for me and wait for me to come down to have a mini-reunion lunch. A few hours later, I get treated no better than a slave. The differences are so marked; even a blind person would have seen it.

I have tried my best to try and help to keep my immediate family together, and when I realised it was a fruitless endeavor I chose to save my sanity and my relationship with my extended family. For the past few years, I have jumped through hoops just to be accepted with the extended. But yet, I’m still the one that is faulted. Just because I am my father’s daughter, does not mean I am a free-for-all target.

My brother doesn’t take care of the immediate family, just as I don’t – but it is me who is questioned, who is looked at like I am wrong to live on my own. I have given up a job I feel so passionately about, a field that I have worked hard to get some recognition, all for a bit more money so I can contribute to my grandmother. I make time to spend with her and talk to my relatives. I’ve tried my best to have them see me as part of the family, in hopes that they will just call me to join in family gathering throughout the year. But yet still I sit on the sidelines, awaiting their (non-forthcoming) approval.

It’s not like I have not tried my best to take care of my siblings. I am also at the end of the day, the child; not the parent. I have given up so much for them, and it all has been for nothing. Everyone has limits, but they don’t seem to care if I can handle it. My brother is given immunity, with no questions asked – why is it so hard for them to award me a little bit of sympathy. The faults of parents are not mine and the mistakes of my siblings are theirs to bear; I have my own to mistakes to live with. I have tried my best and failed – and I have already been duly penalised.

Am I to be punished for the rest of my life for walking away? Am I forever bound to repay the sins of parents and siblings? Am I not human, that I don’t deserve some respect or attention? Am I so hard to love and accept?

Labels: advent, ramblings