Today’s Prompt: Write about a loss: something (or someone) that was part of your life, and isn’t any more.
Loss? I could write about my loss in several things. The loss of my innocence, when I learnt how cruel the world is. The loss of the love in my family, that’s juicy for sure. The loss of my grandfather and great-grandmother last year, which I am not feeling as much as I should. The loss in insignificant competitions, that would not be juicy or even interesting to talk about at all.
The world is indeed cruel, wouldn’t you agree? Do you still remember the hopes you had as a child? The hopes that were crushed the minute you gained epiphany on how evil the world’s inhabitants are, do you remember?
I was a shy boy (believe it or not) and I wonder if it has ever left me. But as a consequence, my interactions with others were next to none. I kept to myself and my books, and games, believing everything I read. I believed that people were kind and the bad ones were taught a lesson and do change for the better, from Enid Blyton’s books. The Disney fairytales always taught me that there will be a happy ending.
I don’t quite remember when I lost my innocence/ learnt the harsh ways of the world.. and I don’t remember either if it was immediate or a transition. But what I know is, I’m not an optimist like I used to be. I became pessimistic, constantly worried, paranoid, and stressed, and all these happened unconsciously. I hate the person I’ve become. I like being optimistic. It’s really gloomy to look at the world from the gray perspective. Whenever I comfort my friends that ‘everything will work out in the end’, I feel like a damn hypocrite because I know it’s a lie and life will swallow us up. When I expect my examination results, I am somehow hoping for the worst. I became pessimistic even towards myself; I doubt my own capabilities to score.
Something is terribly wrong with the world. I wouldn’t want my future children to lose their innocence the way I did. Heck, I want them to remain bright and sunny for all of eternity, unlike their father had been. Sometimes I wonder if it was my own parents who made me this way. They never seem to be happy of me. Never proud of my achievements, and always doubting me. Negativity is infectious, and soon I began to doubt myself, and I was on a scholarship back then, where I would be terminated if I did not get consistently stellar results, thus the doubt from both me and my parents culminated in a great deal of stress for me. My father once advised, “Never let yourself understand what stress is.” Ironic, isn’t it, that my father was partially responsible for teaching me what is about?
And that brings me to my family issues. I feel like I grew up in a typical Asian family. (Truth be told, I don’t believe in stereotypes, but for the sake of conveying my meaning in the least words, I used ‘typical’. You get what I mean, don’t you? See, it works!) All the telltale signs of a typical Asian family are there, the musical classes, the demand for ‘A’s, all with incessant nagging and excessively strict parental control thrown in with a bonus. The only missing factor was that they did not demand for me to be a doctor.
I hate this kind of parenting. There is no love. To them, a son is merely a product that has to be polished to become the very best. So polish they did, and there is no love required in the process. Somewhere along the way, my father lost his love towards my mother. He even hates her. Hates, present tense, mind you. He grew distant and my mother was the only one I kept in contact with. It is absolutely ridiculous to have a father figure available, yet being forced to grow up without one. For the last six years, that’s what it felt like. I traded no more than an hour’s worth of conversation with him in the past six years. He lives in the same house as I do. My family is dysfunctional, to say the least.
But things only got worse. Since my father became distant, my mother grew moody as well. She developed tantrums, which was compounded by her lack of patience and short fuse, and exacerbated the entire family dysfunctionality. (created a word there.) She began declaring that I am her burden and could not wait to get rid of me once I had a degree which is capable of landing me a job. I don’t know how truthful it is since she blurted it out only during her tantrums, but it hurt me nevertheless.
So, I have no father figure, and I have a mother who does not care for me. I have no siblings, and my other relatives are more distant than (I don’t know…. insert your own sarcastic simile here please). You can’t count on your friends, since they are not obliged to stick with you through thick and thin….. and that leaves me with no one. I am my own rock. I guess that was when I hardened and believed in the worst in people, the worst of myself and the worst in what the world has to offer.
(Does this count as depressing? I sure hope not. I couldn’t care less anyway)
ger Award
fredtotherick 
