Ho ho ho, tiny mango!

*engages in frantic Cossack dancing without falling over - HAHA, ONLY ON THE INTERWEBS!*

Since I somewhat neglect the business of writing when not angry or upset, this post is intended to buck the trend.

I do indeed have a tiny mango. I sat down to eat yesterday (dinner) and it was looking up at me, laid cosily by my plate. I looked at my sister and mother in bewilderment. They returned fire with 'Yes? Your question is?' faces while chewin' away.

The mango WAS MINE!

However, I was apprehensive about taking a knife to its little baby contours and had ten billion twelve pieces of work to hand in, plus several forms via email, so hi ho, hi ho, back off to the PC I went. What felt like years later (midnight), I had sent every last mofo off. I have a horrible feeling they are going to be all 'What the fuck, why is this one written exercise in four parts?!' To which I reply: Move to Gmail so you can send and accept up to 25MB of attachments, biatches!!!!

Thus music was not made with the tiny mango, but it might be at lunch today.

Meanwhile, my sister is reliving my teens. I have told my parents again and again and again - I should just make like Joseph the stalker in Amélie and record myself saying it, to play as evidence whenever needed - getting angry at her for being upset about her divorce is USELESS. Not only is it useless, it's actively damaging. Yesterday reached a sort of break-point.

We were having dinner when my mum started talking (as she does) about how the previous day, my dad had asked her why women feel the need to be scantily-clad. In typical Mater fashion, she brought new gravitas to the phrase 'beating around the bush,' going on about how dressing like that makes people hate you (yup, I've seen that, it's often called misogyny), cotton and making my sister feel bad about the fact that she was wearing a strappy top.

Increasingly irritated, we both asked what her point was. She fired off another rambling anecdote. This one made me angry. She was talking about our sort-of-aunt criticising her 16-year-old granddaughter for having worn a top that was off both shoulders. She implied that my 16-year-old sort-of-cousin's parents were not guiding her sartorially, as they should. We asked her to get to the point. She did - and I wasn't disappointed. In classic victim-blaming style, she announced that 'if you dress like that, you invite crime upon yourself.' My sister and I retaliated, me by quoting rape figures at her and my sister by pointing out that if my mum were to get mugged, would she like it if we turned around and said 'You had a handbag, you were asking for it'?

I was quite pleased with that. However, before we even got to this stage, my sister dropped a (deliberate, I think) bombshell saying that she missed her ex. As I went back to the PC, my mum discovered that she had called him the night before. My mum went into the usual 'come down like a ton of bricks' mode. I tried to be calm and warned my sister that I would let it go, but that taking such measures wouldn't help her in the long-term, especially if she started to do it a lot.

Now, normally I wouldn't jump to my parents' line of thought so quickly, but an incident from the weekend made me worry. I went with her to her former home to pick up some things, and was shocked at how frightened she was. She almost jumped out of her skin when I got out of the car and joined her, and was shaking all over when we entered. She actually dropped her keys twice as a result. Despite my trying to gently usher her along, she went to the front room where he was and spoke to him, making small talk. Then she broke down crying silently and didn't really stop till we'd left.

So, I was worried that she was actually thinking about going back, and my mum's input didn't help. My mum told my dad as soon as he got home, which made him get angry of course. A bit later, my sister was called downstairs and then everything went horribly wrong. I was busy sending off my stuff (or trying to) and I didn't want to make things worse, so I just listened to what was said for a while.

The whole thing turned into a horrible testament to my parents' inability to listen and accept things outside their immediate understanding. The point my sister tried to make - eloquently and honestly - was that she has to keep up a front for everyone outside, and that she just wants to be able to say how she is feeling at home without my parents jumping to conclusions. That means: my dad should stop telling her to 'go back, then' just because she is upset that her marriage ended.

As I said - I have tried to emphasise enough times to my parents that they are speaking from a position of distance and logic. Sure, she SHOULDN'T be upset because she escaped an abusive twat... but that's just it - she's NOT sorry she left! She is mourning for herself and the death of her hopes as much as she is mourning the end of the marriage. Why my parents can't get that through their thick skulls, I DON'T FUCKING KNOW.

Anyway, my dad proved her point by not listening to her and getting steadily more defensive. She said that their reactions, accusing her of being weak and like my dad's sister, made her feel worse and feel like a disappointment. Despite this my dad kept:

a) saying 'I don't know how a child of mine can be so weak-minded'
b) getting aggressively defensive and making her feel guilty for not accepting his anger, because (to simplify) he rescued her and he's her father and all he does is care, and he has a right to be angry IN HIS HOUSE!
c) muttering about how she must have a 'sick' and 'twisted' psychology and saying 'Well, I just want someone to explain this to me LOGICALLY.'

I tried hard to mediate between the two parties. My parents had a point in saying that she should reduce communication with her ex - but she has. She made the point that she can't cut communication altogether just yet, and even if she did, it wouldn't make the feelings inside of her go away. That's NOT TO SAY she regretted her decision to divorce, just that she was feeling bereaved. Having gone through a break-up myself, I reflected and realised that I do understand her decision to occasionally have minor contact. It can be better than sitting there, dwelling on your ex, becoming nostalgic and then collapsing into tears and masochism.

The whole thing ended with - what else? - my sister bursting into tears while my dad grumbled and raged and then she walked out and went upstairs whilst he still sat there muttering about how 'it is a sick psychology - twisted.' I went to her a bit later and told her to just not bother trying to explain grey areas to my parents. The thing I realised, whilst speaking to TL about it all, is that my dad lives in a very black-and-white world, and - crucially - he's never had to listen. In his life to date as the head of a gurdwara, he's accustomed to being told what we wants or needs to hear. When I pointed this out to my sister, I said 'He's used to 'yes' or 'no' - there have never been any grey areas.'

It's interesting to see how much I have taken after my parents in some ways. In personality, I can be much more like my father and now I can't help wondering if he's ever had depression. I can believe it, though he'd never tell anyone or let anyone get close enough to see. It's sad, because he really is a good man, surprisingly open-minded at times, but he has grown up so defensive about what's his, and the respect and obedience that he is owed, that he can't hear others. Everything becomes an attack to which he must raise his defensive shield and fight, even when the 'attacker' in question is his own child and in need of understanding rather than rejection.

I despair!