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.
Relaxation is not my jam. Never was, although the need to be constantly keeping myself occupied became exacerbated when I was unemployed for 4 months back in 2018. Just imagine having someone who comes home every night and the first thing they do is scream at you, lecture you, or threaten you, and it’s not just on weeknights but 24/7.
I was not only anxious but I was also depressed. The words she said made me feel like completely worthless.
I was not fired from my previous job, by the way. I told the CEO I quit and he said no. I quit anyway because I’ve encountered some of the most emotionally abusive people on that job. I’ve already have one emotional abuser, I don’t need three other. There are not many people in this world that can make my cry, I’ve developed an outer shell as tough as Kevlar in the recent year, but, man oh man, and it wasn’t because I made a mistake.
It took me a long time to recover between being unemployed and being constantly threatened and lectured by mom. Even after I got my current job, I was living life at top speed but I liked it. It kept me busy, consistently working overtime. In fact, this year is the year I finally stop having consistent overtime. After 5 years, can you believe it?
Still, I can’t relax. As much as I want to just sit back and do nothing for even 5 minutes, I can’t. I either get antsy and anxious and angry or mom will give me a task to do.
I don’t even think I’ve been able to sit and read a book for a few minutes without mom calling me. So it’s not just me who won’t let me relax, it’s other people as well.
Lately, I feel like I’m not spending time on nature, doing walks, and taking pictures. I remember how much doing those things made me feel good. It was one of the few things that made my racing mind slow down.
I want to do those things again so much. I have been begging mom to let me go to Cascade Springs this summer – a lovely spot I discovered last year. “But I don’t want to go.” She said.
“I don’t need you to go.” I responded. The whole point was for me to venture on my own. Cascade Springs is a safe spot. I mean, school kids go there for field trips, how bad can it be?
Of all the places I’ve been, Cascade Springs was one of the rare places that made me slow down and listen to the water from a rushing torrent to a trickling stream. I love the sound of trickling stream, by the way, so peaceful and relaxing. When I’m restless and can’t sleep, I’d play this sound on an app on my phone and set a timer for 2 hours.
Alas, I can’t go out these days without the need to tow mom along, which it’s something I may never understand.
Here are some photos I took when I went to Cascade Springs last August.
It’s been beyond chilly here lately. Temperatures were in the single-digits at the start of the week and I’m talking about single-digits Fahrenheit, not Celsius. Not to mention there was a wind chill warning. Add on the wind chill and that single digit automatically drop to the other side of zero.
This is Another Story 