The Sacrifice ~ Social Surrender in Action

This entry is dedicated to all the friends – past and present - so-called friends, acquaintances and even family members who may have invited me out on occasion only to have me politely decline almost every time. It’s not that I’m a stick in the mud – even though sometimes I genuinely don’t feel like it; but on occasion when I haven’t felt like it, I may have gone anyway – it’s a very rare occasion that I pull out of something that I’ve already said “yes” to.

But I digress.

It’s not that I don’t want to hang out with you – sometimes I might not want to hang out with you on that particular occasion however. But then again, sometimes it might be that I am avoiding you because the event makes me feel uncomfortable or you do and I haven’t got the balls gotten around to telling you yet.* Just being honest.

Again, however, I digress.

It’s not because I don’t like you; now that I think about it, there aren’t many people that I dislike – just the actions of those people sometimes. But ultimately, it all boils down to sacrifice and the amount of things I’ve had to give up over the last year or so in order to move forward with my dreams. Gosh, I sound like a sob story, don’t I?

But you see, for the longest while, I was lost. Fresh into university, I had already decided that I wanted to be a counsellor. Only, a brief stint with this after graduation taught me that I wasn’t ready for something of that scale – not yet anyway. So for a year or so, I wondered around lost trying to figure out what it was that I should do with myself and then bam! In early 2012, I started to take steps towards TEFL.

I only work part time so I make peanuts. I also, have bills – however minor – that I must see to every month. So I’ve had to maintain my ‘control freak charade’ (and believe me, I’m very good at it) and manage my expenditure very carefully. Every month, I set aside my bills, my transport expense and the money I intended and still intend to save to make my dreams of teaching English overseas a reality. Only a fraction of that is what I can spend on myself and it usually goes towards food because let’s face it, a girl’s gotta eat.

I’m sure you’re all nodding your heads and rolling your eyes thinking to yourselves that everybody does this – or at least everyone with sense. Everybody has bills to pay and obligations to meet. And everybody can meet them – you know, as long as they’re smart. But I feel particularly strained because it’s a rare instance that I can actually treat myself.

The last time I bought an item of clothing for myself was December 2011. Don’t worry; I’m not at the door of the poor house just yet. I have clothes. Some of them are on their way out, but I have them anyway. I actually managed to buy myself a video game over the Christmas holidays thanks to some wonderful family members who treated me to a little extra cash. But then how could I not remember the wonderful people at Shopto.net who reduced the game in price as well. January sales for the win!

I have to economise however. I buy mostly only what I need nowadays and when I want/need something of superior expense, I have to save for it. So while most of my friends would probably only have to wait a few weeks until their next pay check, I might have a wait a few months.

I’m basically on a budget. I want to save a certain amount by a certain time and thus, I’ve set myself a personal target. In actuality, I was supposed to have met that target by the beginning of this year, but extenuating circumstances –coughTESOLcoursecough- set me back a couple hundred. This means that in the months to come, I may or may not still reject invitations to my friends, family and what have you. But I just wanted to let everyone know that it’s not always because I’m being awkward; it’s because I’ve got a goal I wanna reach. And if that means that I can’t have as much fun as everybody else, then so be it. It’s been a year; I could probably do another 6 months.

But at the end of the day, I know that it’s not always gonna be like this. And believe me, when I’ve hit my target – or if I mysterious come into money tomorrow – I’ll be back on the shelf and raring to party. And I might even surprise you with my own invitation one of these days when I’ve finally book my plane ticket overseas. So watch this space. =D

*note: this mostly applies so-called friends and acquaintances.

Christmas Crackheads ~ Youth Edition

So it’s Christmas Eve and as I write this, in less than one hour, it’ll be officially Christmas Day. As such, I’m suddenly reminded of the times when I was a kid, and I was granted the opportunity to stay up until midnight where I was allowed to open one present before the morning. Back then, as most children are, I was excitable and this ritual happened every year like clockwork. As I steadily approach a quarter of a century, however, this Christmas tradition and the excitement accompanying it has proceeded to dwindle. And maybe it’s because I’m older and because I know all the secrets of Christmas now (or the fact that as I write this I can feel the onset of a cold coming on) that this time of year just doesn’t seem so special anymore.

I mean, everyone talks about the holiday spirit – the chance to eat, drink, give and be merry. And some people truly have it. For example, on facebook, a friend of mine organised a charitable affair by collecting hats, scarves and gloves and donating them to the homeless. Commendable stuff really. But I think that as we get older that unless we have children directly in our midst or unless we’re devout Christians or family men and women, the message of true Christmas cheer gets lost in translation. And then there are the people that make you scrunch up your face in disbelief and wonder ‘No seriously! What is up with that?’. And I’m not talking about the Scrooges and Scroogettes. I’m talking about the people who seem to have no sense.

As my contribution to the dinner table this year, it was my job to make dessert so I decided to bake a cake. Just as I was about the start, I realised that the butter had expired so decided to pop out to pick some up. In true British fashion, it was raining so I donned my trackies, hoody, boots, scarf, coat and umbrella and proceeded to make the descent down the road. As I was walking, I spotted three people across the road, dressed in a similar fashion to myself and couldn’t help by wonder if they too were trekking down the hill to pick up some last minute titbits.

How wrong I was.

A loud noise later and I saw that one of them had managed to get a hold of one of the large bins on wheels. Two seconds later, said culprit had pushed one of the bins into the road and rather callously pushed it back again where it rather loudly fell against the pavement edge. By then, I realised that these people weren’t like me at all. They weren’t even drunk. They were youths with nothing better to do on Christmas Eve than ransack public property. It only got worse though when said youth decided to push the large compactor into the centre of the road…and leave it there. By then, I’m thinking ‘what the fuck?’

I mean I wish I could have snapped a picture or taken a video or something, but people like this are wicked in nature (no doubt they would have chased my down the road) as clearly they were looking to cause a public catastrophe tonight. But I just don’t understand why it’s amusing to cause trouble. What goes through the mind of people when they think bad is good and good is bad? What is the purpose of defacing property? And why would anyone want to deliberately cause a car crash – possibly even taking someone’s life and cause a family grievance this Christmas?

Last year in August, the riots happened where people, young and old, took to the streets to loot, pillage and destroy public property. It derived from a peaceful protest gone savage and people took it upon themselves to join in with the chaos. In psychology, we call it minority influence. People attempted to justify their actions by implying that they were ‘taking back their taxes’, fighting on behalf of the Mark Duggan case or just fighting for minority and/or poverty stricken groups in general. It’s all stupid really because I don’t think setting someone’s family business on fire justifies these means at all.

But maybe we’re not supposed to understand these people - these kids who think playing cruel jokes are funny. If you recall from an earlier post of mine, the kids in my class used to put pins in the ground hoping that someone might sit on them. Similarly, throughout the UK, we’ve had the Happy Slapping epidemic, an increase in knife crime, turf battles and the like. I know people who are frightened to raise their children here for fear of what they might become. At the same time, however, we’re the adults here are we not? Why is it that we’re so afraid to deal with these youths who seem to have no sense? Why do we let them trample up and down the streets at night when they should be indoors with their families helping to prepare this year’s Christmas dinner instead?

The outside world may be full of negative influences, but I truly believe that stability starts with family. So even though this is coming from me, who feels that she is not as close to her family as she should be, surround yourself with loved ones this Christmas. Hold them close. Treasure and appreciate them (for all their flaws as well) and have a Merry Christmas.

Family Values - Is Blood Really Thicker?

I’m probably taking a huge gamble writing this considering than any one of my relatives could click on this page and read my thoughts. I don’t expect to get feedback nor empathy either really as I’m pretty sure I’m one of few that feels this way, but I was thinking about this last night and it was further amplified by this blog entry that I read this morning. Because, you see, family is supposed to be important and it is – I don’t dispute this. You can’t choose your family and even if they drive you up the wall, you love them anyway. For example, some of the women in my family have a strong pride about things and must always get the last word in during an argument no matter what. Other members of my family repeat themselves and this irritates me to no end because I have a thing about feeling patronised. But even though I love my family and will always love them unconditionally, over the years, I’ve come to find that I’m not as close to my family as I would like to be.

On my mum’s side in particular, the vast majority of my relatives are women. Women like to talk. This dates back to history when ladies would meet with each other to have a good natter and gossip about their day to day experiences. Unfortunately, I’ve never been one to talk about myself much. I have no problems penning my thoughts; I find more comfort in writing, but speaking about them – especially if their negative – has always been difficult for me. In a sense, I was a very modest child - I believe I grew up with a few self-acceptance issues as well. Even now, I have a divine hatred of arrogance - modesty is the best policy - so it was quite difficult for my family to coax information out of me. In retrospect, I think I might have adopted a ‘guy’ mentality, similar to this:

(see between 30 and 42 seconds)

I talk in facts.

How are you? I’m fine? Do anything this weekend? Went to a club. How was it? Great!

I don’t always elaborate. And while sometimes I know that this isn’t on purpose, sometimes it really is. So maybe it’s not just about mentality, but about feeling comfortable as well. Because I’m sure that we would all agree that there are just some things that you don’t tell your relatives in the same way that you tell your friends and vice versa.

You’ll remember that I mentioned earlier on, that I grew up unable to accept the way I was for quite some time. For more information, you can read my opening entry. I was a very atypical child. In primary school, I played with children younger than myself because all the other girls ever did during playtime was hang around the football pitch, gossip and watch the boys play football -snore-. In secondary school, I used less of my mouth and more of my brain to get by, preferring to improve my intelligence instead of my popularity. By even then, I was secretive. I was almost ashamed that I had typically geeky pastimes. I played video games, I wrote fanfiction, I spent A LOT of time at my computer and I liked watching Japanese cartoons. I kept these sides of myself locked away indoors. The funny thing is, most of my family knew these things about me. I could even share one or two things with the members of my own generation, but at the same time, there are things that are strongly associated with myself – things that are integrated into my personality – that I am unable to share with them. And this is because I’m not at ease enough to do so.

It should be common knowledge that the way your treat your elders is different to the way you treat your cousins, your friends or those who are younger than you. There’s a level of respect that you must exercise to your elders just because their older than you and wiser than you. And I do respect my family, but what I’ve realised now is that I’m not comfortable enough to be myself around them. 

This doesn’t pertain to all members of my family however – just a lot more of them than there should be. Everyone’s got a black sheep in their family. I’m starting to wonder if I’m leaning dangerously close to becoming the black sheep of mine.

Perhaps it happened when I went to university, where the bridge between me and my family increased substantially. As I said, I was the kid that talked in facts.  I started to dislike speaking to people on the phone and even now as an adult, I find talking on the phone to be incredibly awkward. I text people more than I speak to them – potentially, this might be the influence of the writer in me or maybe it’s the fear of the awkward - if I can avoid an uncomfortable situation, I will. In fact, the amount of people I feel comfortable talking to on the phone are enough for me to count on one hand. That’s bad, I know. And because most of my family utilise the phone to communicate – especially as we don’t live particular close to one another, I feel that in me not contacting them the way their used to communicating, they may have potentially interpreted it to be me purposely distancing myself from them. And so they don’t call me. And I don’t call them. And as such, the distance gets greater and greater and the relationship starts to crumble.

Ever bumped into a person you once went to school with as an adult? You haven’t seen them in ages; you had some good times back in the day and now you wouldn’t mind catching up. Only your relationship in school might have been something, but as an adult, you’ve both become different people. You’re interests are different. The way you conduct yourself is different and in being different, whatever relationship you might have had, has no way of resuming.

I’m not sure I changed much during university - I may have become a bit more confident, a bit more responsible, a bit more self aware and a little less tolerant (of certain things) – but excluding that, I’m pretty sure I’m the same person I was…I think. Irrespective, I’m thinking that in having very little contact with my family, that distance between us simply became too great. As a unit, they themselves became closer and I became the person looking in from the outside. And even though I’m taking steps to reduce that gap, it’s difficult because it requires effort when it should be natural. These people are my family after all. They’ve known me all or most of my life, but it doesn’t detract from the unfortunate fact.

It pains me to say this, but what I’ve now come to interpret is the sad fact that while we are family, we are not friends. Spending time together has almost become an obligation just because instead of the desire that it once was. Because to good friends, you share everything with them. You talk about the highs and lows of your life. You may even go to a specific friend for advice. You talk about your innermost secrets. You laugh, you cry and you share the world together. But with certain members of my family, I cannot do this. And I’m pretty sure that this is the case for them as well. 

I feel like I don't know my family; I know them in a sense that I know their mannerisms and what they like and what they're good at, but I don't know them in that deep heartfelt way and I feel that they don't know me either. 

Furthermore, if I have an issue - whether someone or something has upset me, or even something as big as this problem in its entirety - I wouldn't feel comfortable enough to talk to them for fear of upsetting them – I dislike conflict – or overstepping the boundaries of respect. And there are things – issues that I have - that even now I’ve kept bottled up for years, and it's not healthy in the slightest.

All families have secrets nonetheless so maybe I’m not at all that different. At the same time, however, all of this concerns me and as I have intentions of travelling overseas next year, I feel that this needs to be rectified as soon as possible.

So how do we become friends? How do we become comfortable enough with each other to tell each other anything and everything? How do we get things back to the way they once were?

Is it as easy as picking up the phone or spending time together? Because I visit them every couple of weeks or every other month – and I never seem to feel any different. Should I divulge a secret? Extend my trust? Because I’ve done this too and it hasn’t brought us any closer. Or should I air out my grievances and then attempt to start afresh? Stir the pot; let emotions fly and then reconcile because it’s impossible to bring up an issue these days without upsetting somebody.

My advice?

Well, if I’m honest, I’m actually at a loss this time. And I’m usually full of logical solutions to problems. And I know that while there are families all over the world that are closely-knit, there are also, families that can’t stand each other.

Only I seem to be in the unhappy medium. :/