WQ#29: Tiny Miracles

Published on by Yinglan

When I think of the word “Tiny“, I think of all the small things that makes my day more bearable.

Mom has been delivering insults lately, not that she wasn’t before but I’m finding the ones she had delivered in the last week just downright…angering (if that’s a word). Usually, I can take it like my usual backache or joint-pain but this week, it felt extra painful.

She told me I’m a failed investment, that she’s better off buying stocks than invest in me. There was no precedent. I was working, reconciling payments and answering emails when she just came into my room and said that to me.

She basically told me that because I haven’t paid her back the money she lent me to pay off my car and student loans. Guess what, those were forced loans. I never asked for help to pay off any of that stuff. She made me take the money and now expects me to pay back the x-dollar amount, which I don’t even recall.

She said it’s the reason she wanted to adopt a child – she wanted to start over and train him/her to be a better version of me. Why not raise a robot, not a human? A thought came to my mind. One of my professors used to say, “How great is it to put a robot to work? They don’t complain. They don’t ask for raises. They don’t ask for day-offs. They just do what you tell them to do.”

I can never be the person she wants me to be because I’m human, not a robot. It’ll be a miracle if there’s a day when I don’t get criticism or insult from her but for now, I’ll settle for a few hours every Thursday when she’s at the office and I’m at home.

I agree, life is a series of tiny miracles and I love every one of them because, well, they bring joy.

It’s why I love gardening, I think. When I head out into the garden every morning, I notice the tiny little things that I didn’t notice the night before, like how the tiny watermelons are just a tad bigger, how the female cucumber flowers have opened at last to allow either me or the bees to pollinate, and seeing the tiny leaves poke out of the soil from newly germinated seeds.

Seeing these things energize me – like a shot of caffeine without the jitters. These teeny tiny overnight changes excite my optimistic self, it allows my imagination go wild imagining the harvest and the beauty of the plant.

22 thoughts on “WQ#29: Tiny Miracles”

      4. Ha! She doesn’t believe in mental wellness. She laughed when I told her I have anxiety. “What’s there to be anxious about?” She said. “You have a house, a car, a steady job, what’s there to be anxious about?”

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      7. I’d give you the same advice I give to my daughter; develop a thick skin and stop listening to her hurtful comments. It’s not easy but to survive one must do that

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    1. If you ask her, she wouldn’t say that’s hateful. She often says she would only say those things to me to show she cares for me. I often tell her if she truly cares, she will realize her words hurt.

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    1. She’s been talking about moving to Japan. I’m praying that day will come soon so I can have my house back. To be honest, I don’t want to be the one to leave despite a co-worker of mine used to say, “everything is just material, it can be replaced,” I’m afraid I’m too sentimental to leave my garden and my house, which I’m currently actively repaying, behind.

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      1. I get that. You can’t evict her and you don’t want to leave your hard work by selling and moving on to a different place. You are between the proverbial rock and hard place.

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      3. My thoughts and prayers are with you. You’re doing an amazingly strong thing. Do you know Debby Geis? She has a book about her experiences with that kind of behavior from her mother. She’s a blogger and might offer you some good insight as to how to live with it – or not!

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