I was in the shower today when I got to thinking about a lot of things. My brain works a little like the Internet with all the links that you can click on that I suddenly thought of my childhood.
My childhood was generally a lonely one but I never felt it as such. In fact, I loved it. My house was always quiet; no loud voices (my parents and I generally never talked very loud), music was always played softly, the television was hardly ever switched on, my paternal grandmother was my best friend and I had nothing but books to keep me company.
My father was a very strict disciplinarian, being a police officer and all. He was one of those honest cops we all hear about. He actually turned down a promotion in KL because on the first day in his office, he received an envelope full of money and a note to keep quite about some truck drivers. That same week, he refused the promotion and flew home. It only took him a week because he had to talk to my mom first to see what they should do next. It was a toss-up between being able to get a new Mercedes within one month and going the honest way and probably never, ever getting a big car to drive. Honesty won. (But he didn't do too badly in the long run, right?)
While I was growing up, I was the perfect child. I was quiet, never swore, never even wrote on the walls or anywhere else, never showed my temper and I did everything as I was told. Heck, I was even nice to people who bullied me and verbally abused me.
And those people were my father's relatives. He never knew this and if he did, he didn't want to acknowledge it. He treated them the exact same way he treated me but with less discipline. I would get scolded for pulling a prank on them but behind his back, they called me names and hurled abuse at me. They did more too but I'm not going to dwell on that.
I grew up being called many names. Because I had a pink shirt, I spent the next 6 years being called 'Pink Panther'. Because I was taller than they were, I was called 'Giraffe'. When I resisted all the name calling and let myself get fat, I earned the name 'Elephant' or 'Gajah'. Because I liked the ocean, I got 'Dolphin'. On their own, the names were not bad. But they were always accompanied by a sneer or while something was taken away from me. So the psychological effects on a 5 year-old were never good.
Because of them, I learnt to drown out insults and ignore people who call me names. Because of them, sex scared me. Above all, because of them, I learnt to walk away from anything that annoyed me or that I hated or that I generally felt distasteful about. I also learnt how to hate. But because of my father, I learnt to control my hatred and my anger.
But when one uncle got married and had a child whose left arm was dead, I sat in a corner and, like an evil child, cherished the pain they were going through. Another uncle got a shotgun wedding, later got a divorce and then just disappeared from our lives. Another moment of triumph! All the relatives who called me short, fat, thin, tall, ugly, stupid, all are worst than I am now. They are shorter, fatter, more miserable, uglier than I am. None are taller than I am, none are thinner. All are more disgruntled and some are even a little bit crazy. All depend on my father for money and none realise I now talk to my father about things that make me unhappy. I'm no longer as silent as I used to be. I've learnt to fight back and I do.
I feel nothing for them. I'm not the one depending on them for anything. I owe them nothing. So why should I have any kind of compassion for them? I've tried being nice. I've tried being religious about it. But the pain is just not worth it. God may dish out His own justice to them but on this Earth, I'm the one suffering. So I'll deal with it my way.
Because of them, I'll only react to positive comments. You want me to be nice, you tell me how nice I am. You want me to lose weight, you comment how good I look after trying. You want me to eat less, tell me you'll share my food with me. If anyone criticises me or finds fault with what I do, I'll react the way I do with my relatives. I'll ignore you or walk away. Worst yet, I could shutdown and pretend I didn't hear a word you said. Frustrating? Imagine how I feel.
