"I’ve always wondered if there’s ever been a perfect family.."
..excerpts from the song "Petals" by M.Carey
Hi, how's everybody doing? Hopefully all is well with you guys and don't go asking me the same thing for I'm a bit shaky and depressed right now, fresh from Word War LXXII. Well, I don't really know how to begin with, but there are a lot of things in my mind that I wanted to instill in this post. I just had an extreme fray with my Aunt and as usual, just like the previous quarrels, it's been the same thing. Same curses, same litanies, same disparaging remarks, same profane and derogatory arguments are thrown at me and same exchanges of badmouthing layered the tensed air. I'm already stoned with it and the passing years of having such are what made my pair of ears numb. It's not really affecting me that much unlike the earlier years.
"Pasalamat ka sa akin at pinalaki ka dito sa amin at tinanggap ka ng Mama"
"Bastardo ka!"
"Bakit hindi ka umalis dito at wala ka namang karapatan?"
I was just a kid then when I started to gain this urge to fight back from her insults and since that day, I already trained my ears to be friends with those very same sentences. I was just a kid and still ignorant with most of what life really is while my neighbors are already feasting on my Aunt's share of stories and guess who the topic is? Our family and in particular, ME. Our neighborhood knows that I am "adopted" ever since I was in diapers and that I didn't know who my biological father was. Fast track to 2007, and I still don't have a darn idea as to the identity of the sperm that brought life to me. I wasn't really shaken by this fact about my truth for my adopted father loved me unconditionally. Although he sometimes fail, he did provide me this pure and an unadulterated father figure, so I owe my very existence to him.
"In this old rugged house lives a boy with many dreams
In this same place also lies some painful screams"
..excerpts from "My Fairytale" by Lalon
He was there each step of the way. He was this great person that I look up to, above anyone else. I was as stubborn as him, I was as ill-tempered as him and I was as critically-opinionated as him. He was my real mother's legal husband and he was this kind person who accepted me to be a part of his family even though I wasn't his own fruit. My childhood was really hard but in so many ways he made it conducive of living. As a child, I felt really excluded, I felt that no one liked me, I felt unwanted and I knew from the beginning that something in my life is just so wrong. Everyday, I can't help but to be ashamed and too conscious of myself whenever people will look at me with disappointment, amazement, or if not, with prying eyes as if saying "poor child". My right eye was innately blind, it can't see a thing, totally blank or zero in grade. Later on, I've known that my real mother actually wanted to abort me and took some pills during her pregnancy period to do so. It was really painful to know that my mother who's supposed to gratify me with motherly love, at one point, wanted to kill me. I don't held any grudge on her (may she rest well from where she may be now) for I know life was already complicated for her and that she has her own reasons of why she wanna do it that it resulted for my right eye's inability to have it's vision towards the rest of my sight. Because of this, I knew all along that I'm not a regular kid living the normal life. Petty vexes from immature people, paranoia, and repugnance from PERFECT people became an everyday thing for me.
"Love you father for you raised me as if your own
Even if the blood that flows within was never from you
Sorry mama for you rested so soon
I never had a chance to help and see you change
Thank you brothers and sisters for your companionship
Even if it’s just casual between us"
..excerpts from "My Fairytale" by Lalon
My mother's relationship with my adopted father is a receptacle of all sorts of couple's mess and a validation of hell on Earth. They argue a lot, with money, with my mother's other suitors that she's entertaining even if she knows she's tied to him already and with other petty things that they'd find too difficult to settle. I know my mom wasn't that happy to be with my adopted father for she was really ambitious and obviously, she's not contented with what my adopted father could provide for her and her family. Love was there, but I guess it's not intact and boundless to make things work all the time. So, after grueling hours of extreme quarreling paired with shattering pieces of glasses and ceramics, they would always end up separating. My mother would always leave us and within that hiatus, she would engage in a relationship with another man. Twice it is that she did come back and reconciled with him, wherein, she's either pregnant or worse, she's gonna bring her new offspring from a different man home. My adopted father was just unbelievably kind that he would just embrace my mother and will accept her kids with no questions asked. He cared less that my mother stepped on his ego for a lot of instances, because, all he really wanted is for his family to be whole. I'm forever grateful and debted that I was one of those kids that he sheltered with a fatherly love truthfully and without hesitations.
"Papa I may not be what you’ve ideally want me to be
And I know I’m not the typical son a father would like to have
But still I saw you‘re efforts
I saw you struggle as you’ve tried your best to find me
And I understand it’s hard for you
But did it ever cross your mind?
That it was a hundredfold difficult for me
But I never and will never walk away
Because I know we’ll still intertwine as father and son"
..excerpts from "Send These Tears to You" by Lalon
My father's absolute kindness (or pity) enraged his own family and my pseudo-Aunt (her sister) was one of those who's very vocal in opposing and condemning my adopted father's acts. She didn't give any amount of respect to my individuality (that's why I don't respect her). She's the reason why I don't have this close-relationship with the rest of my half-siblings.
"While I’m enthroned against my chair for she hated me
She whom with all my life brought me savage and grief"
..excerpts from "My Fairytale" by Lalon
We we're just kids then but my half-siblings already distanced themselves for they knew that I'm not "totally" a part of their circle since my pseudo-Aunt already explained it to them. As I grew up, whenever I'd have a heated argument with my half-siblings, they would always remind me that I don't have any "right" in this house or they would just say "Who do you think you are?". That resulted in me restricting myself to this house, I didn't demand anything and i placed myself properly as I know that i don't have "that" right that they would always shove up to my face. I would always ask for permission before, if I'm gonna bring friends or classmates here. I would always remind myself to not overdo my role in this house. I grew up not only having this "spaced" relationship but also, as a battered child. Bruises though faded, but still, remnants of blurred pictures of yesterday still haunts me and it still giving me that cold waters of nostalgia.. of electric fan's cords lashing my back and legs, plastic monoblock chairs bashing through my body, my head being pounded to concrete walls, left-over food for dogs being pied on my face and them, unmindful of whether i already had my dinner or not.
"Thanks to my eldest brother who taught me those
Thanks for the bruises as well
I found a new glory being branded a bright child
But was injured by the same person
Whom I’m supposed to seek shelter to, guard me from harm.
I was extremely battered.. and yet I’m still a child"
..excerpts from "Childhood" by Lalon.
As a result of that restriction, my half-siblings weren't really "there" to help me out. We were really "casual" and they weren't really "that" brothers and sister that I could run into in times of need. I NEVER hugged anyone of them, I NEVER shared a single problem to any of them and they didn't show any interest when I told them about my plans of attending college. College life was again so hard for me for I felt that everyone is expecting and wanting me to fail my college academically, and that, they're kind of thinking I'm not gonna make it. I didn't get moral and financial support from them and if ever they'd give me money, it ALWAYS comes with a favor. That favor is to make me tend their laundries, clean their rooms and other sorts of slavery in spite of the half-truth that we still share a common denominator, which is related blood. These conditions served it's purpose for me, for it scoured the way for my road to success, which is, graduation. I felt so happy that I disproved them and that I was able to make it on my own amidst the air of "expectations" in our household. I loved every bit of that moment seeing how stunned their faces were when I broke the news to them that I'll be marching and that I made it in time. Indeed, success is the sweetest revenge. However, I didn't attend the ceremonies for I find it useless to do so. I didn't have any particular person to dedicate this success aside from me and my adopted dad but, today, I'm gonna admit that I partially wanted to share that moment with them and that all along, I knew that I was doing it to please them but they never knew that (and I'm doubtful if they will) for they never did any attempt to know me and to listen intently to my voice.
Life was such a shit, so ironic and complicated that it was a concoction of what others might consider a "misery". I was blind, I'm ugly, I'm gay, I'm adopted, I don't know who my father was and I was restricted by the very family that I could seek shelter from harm and could call my own. In many times and in many ways (excluding suicidal attempts), I thought of giving up but the inner strength in me wants me to fight my way up and made me roll with the punches. Sometimes I self-pity because I just couldn't fight anymore, I felt helpless to still give life a go but then I have dreams that I wanted to achieve and I hated the very idea of failing myself. I'm entitled of my own happiness in this world for this is my home and it's a part of me. I still enjoy life in general, it had taught me so well. I owe everything to my inner voice within who were there beside me and never gave up, I owe it to my adopted father (my "real" Dad) who were my most important ally in this war of life, I owe it friends who were there to listen and comfort, I owe it to music who serves as my sanctuary to keep sane and from moving on, but i don't owe it to god. That god that they're talking about wasn't really there. I was helped by myself, by the people around me, by my sanity and positivity in viewing life. I've always believed that after every storm a rainbow will appear and that everything will just be beautiful. The truth is, you have to be STRONG and never wrong anyone.
I'm glad I did vent this out for it felt really good. I'm not a dramatic person but crying is an option to let myself loose of all the strifes and negativity that's possessing me.
Thank you for taking your time to read this and for knowing me a bit better.
Labels: Lalon Day-Day, My Mind Speaks
I think you're a really brave and strong person, specially that you shared these things with your readers...