He's Leaving Home

Mon amour flies out to the Netherlands tomorrow to start a Master's.

I'm not quite coming to terms with this yet.

I just hope it doesn't happen (my coming to terms with it) anytime during the Nagar Kirtan tomorrow (which I'm assuming I'll be forced to go to well in advance), or during the family barbecue on Monday, another event I'm not exactly looking forward to.

My sister proceeded to ask us what we wanted (to make) yesterday. Then, after a short pause (in which no-one said anything, because they knew it wouldn't really matter if they did), she proceeded to tell us what she had planned. Then she asked my mum the same question. Any vague thoughts I might have entertained about asking for halloumi or vegetable kebabs went down the pan as my mum asked if she could make paneer (my sister's not going to refuse my mum! Who do you think she is, me?) and then I was roundly ignored when I suggested vegetable kebabs.

Of course, if you're being left out of something, you're going to find it dull, aren't you? Ergo, while eating my dinner (having been refused permission to head upstairs and FINALLY finish episode 7 of season 5 of The Wire), my eyes strayed to the wall-clock at least four times, a couple of times intentionally and a couple of times idly, as I mentally drowned out the talk of couscous salad and SOS burgers.

Silly me, I forgot that I was in the presence of one of my elder siblings and what the inevitable result of any kind of individual activity is in such cases. '.....! Why do you keep looking at the clock?' she asked, with that amused sneer that always makes me want to punch her square in the face.

I was 'saved' by my mother chipping in in her best woe-is-me-I-don't-understand-these-children tones, saying something along the lines of 'Don't even ask about her. She's a fanatic. She thinks this...' and the rest was white noise, as usual.
I fought the urge to take a huge, preparatory breath when I saw the amused sneer spread as my sister took in the information, obviously thinking this was A Job For Her, as a 'healthcare professional' to pontificate upon.

'Is this Paul McKenna?' she asked, with an air of expertise.
Somehow I kept my jaw under control enough to manage an affronted 'No!' It can be very damaging for one's self-esteem when one's family members assume that one is exceptionally thick and susceptible to all sorts of 'influences'.
Magically, I didn't laugh or scream while she proceeded to tell me that what I was doing was wrong, while simultaneously getting what I was doing WRONG herself, because she didn't even bother to ask me before going off on one!

So, I sat there, licking tiny bits of spinach meticulously off of a burki while she told me that I didn't need to chew every bite 30 times, and then when I said I wasn't, told me that I didn't need to count in my head (WTF?) before swallowing, or something. I was finding it hard to pay attention due to the sheer farce of the situation giving me a near out-of-body experience. Finally, patience at a single-hair thickness, I informed her that all I was trying to do was eat slower and make my mealtimes (as in length of actual eating) cover 20 minutes or more, since I had already tried it and IT WORKED FOR ME.

Fat lot of good that did. The flow kept coming, and I replied swiftly and somewhat sharply (in tone) to something else, resulting in her telling me to 'shut up and just listen'. That's GOLD, ferChrissakes! Absolute GOLD. Then she somehow turned THAT into a lecture on how I should be more obedient and dutiful and then asked me why I wasn't accompanying BOTH my parents to the shop. It seems that my dad having an eye operation, which has actually rejuvenated his eyesight, makes him older and weaker, not less. She also pulled the 'I've told both of you' despite-only-guilttripping-me classic as well. As usual, my brother got off scot-free because somehow, being male and the youngest child means that your every failing, no matter how grave (like smacking bags of frozen veg against your grandfather's face?) can be blamed on 'not mature yet' or 'boys are like that.'

Stupid, stupid bitch. I felt guilty for having such strong feelings against her, then something in me exploded underneath it all, and I thought: WHY? Why the hell should I feel bad for this huge resentment? Is it without foundation? No. Do I get treated like an adult? No. Do I get listened to? No. And yet, as soon as it suits their agenda, they trot out 'You're 21/an adult now, you need to take more responsibility/act like it.'

Well, my brother is 19 and contributing fuck-all to the world. Where is his responsibility? In the Nintendo Wii? Round one of his myriad friends' houses? In his driving lessons? At the gym, where he is obsessed with making himself 'hench'?

Also, when I came home earlier, I was wearing a dress that ended mid-thigh. She looked at me in a comically faux-perplexed way and asked me where my skirt was. I replied 'Oh, it's ridden up' and pulled it down (making all of 0.5cm difference). Then, she asked me (almost in a rhetorical way): 'Do you think you should be wearing things like that out?'

The item in question looked like this but with a higher and more closed neck, and was slightly longer. I replied 'Uh, yeah, because I'm wearing it with opaque tights' (bright red opaque tights! :-D).
'Now, I know you might have worn whatever you felt like in France' came the reply, with a very strange trout-like face being pulled and her flapping her hands near her face as if she was possessed or somesuch, 'but here' and she snapped back into her stern-matriarch pose, sitting upright against the sofa back, my mum's bulk beside her, 'you have to be a bit...'

She paused and my brother, who had been trying to contain his deranged glee since she began her haranguing, shouted almost compulsively 'With it! WITH IT!' before bursting into shrieked guffaws of laughter and falling against my mother. I could swear that that child did not receive enough oxygen in the womb.

'... conservative,' she finished. 'Hurry up and get changed, they're coming here for dinner.'
I looked at her, lost. 'Who's coming for dinner?'
Exasperation glinted in her eye. 'Do you live in this house?' she cried. Bizarre question. 'Who's missing?!'
'Dad and Uncle?'
'EXACTLY!' she said, thrusting her head forward in a sort of exasperation-shrug, as if this had been wildly evident from the start.

Wordlessly, I turned and went upstairs to get changed, marvelling at my composure.

Currently keeping me (barely) sane: Lupe Fiasco - Gold Watch.