Bittersweet 4th

Happy Birthday America, it was quite a day, or not really. It was a heavy day more than anything. I didn't wake up until 11, the first time that's happened in a few weeks actually. I made breakfast and pretty much wasted time on the computer for the longest time before forcing my lazy-Monday ass to the gym. On my way out i noticed I missed a call from my mom. Fuck. It's not like I was in trouble; hardly, but she had already called earlier that day so this must mean that she had some news.

To make sense of this we have to rewind for a week or so. Things between my mom and dad have been slowly deteriorating for quite a while, since Winter really when it was finally confirmed my dad was cheating on my mom. Well, the past three weeks or so, things took another major dip that might have reached a conclusion today, America's birthday. I called her back to see what was up and a tired voice said she was coming home from my dad's and that if I wanted to go out and get dinner with just the two of us. That signaled to me that she had some sort of news to share, something I dread since for a while now I had cut contact with my dad to minimal levels and this, inevitably was about him. "Sure" I said and I headed home. I changed, my mom arriving home soon after. It was early still, around 4:30 so she said she was going to go to my cousin Nate's to get Microsoft Office 2010 installed on the laptop I bought for her as an early birthday gift (yes, I did go through with it, it cost a paycheck and then some but she deserves it. I'll go into more detail in a later post). Around 5:30 she got back, new software installed and reserved and calm as any good Asian mother would be before revealing something that was not-so-subtly hidden as some sort of conclusion between my parents.

As always, we couldn't figure out where to eat. It's rather surprising actually considering there are literally hundreds of restaurants near my house with foods from around the world. We slowly cruised light to light, me just looking out the window before suggesting an Indian restaurant me and Maria went to on one occasion. We sat, ordered our food and she began her speech. Put short, it was nothing I hadn't already predicted. They're breaking up, my mom is looking for a lawyer, my dad is being stubborn as usual and is not willing to waver. He essentially is abandoning me and my mom for his mistress in what we believe is in Philadelphia. Fun fact, I might have a half-sibling in Philadelphia as well since my dad didn't deny if there was another child. Haha..ha.......ha.

As always, I remained stone faced as my mom tried to figure out her next plan of action. She doesn't want to tell my grandpa, he's too old for this crap, and probably only one of my aunts will find out. Funny thing is, later this month, she was supposed to go on a 2+ week Eurotrip to Scandinavia with my aunt and cousin on my dad's side. Her now unexplained absence will surely cause a stir; I look forward to hearing what explanation my dad gives. My aunt will probably believe whatever my dad says and will side with him, but my cousin will almost positively side with my mom, he likes her and me too much to be honest.

We talked about other things as our food arrived, but it wasn't too long before I was trying to shove chicken korma, palak paneer and naan into my face in a vain attempt to stymie the conversation. I know my mom was hurting and it hurts me too, but this time around, I think she is finally getting what I've believed and held to be true for months, that she needs to end this unhealthy relationship. Soon the waitress, dressed in an orange sari came to check on us and try to make small talk. We paid our check, left, and life literally went on as if nothing happened. We went grocery shopping, went home and soon we went to go see the fireworks.

I don't live in a big city, I might live near one, but it's the suburbs. We congregated on the lawn of a shopping plaza and waited for 9:30. It was me, my mom and my uncle and cousin, plus some random distant relative of mine that nobody really likes but that's honestly irrelevant. It was your everyday show, boom, flash, boom, flash. An Indian family sitting on the curb behind I was standing kept asking people to move or sit down because they were blocking their view rather than getting off  their asses and standing themselves; it pissed me off but I kept reminding myself that it would be wasting energy to confront them. This was the first time for both my mom and I in the 14 years I've lived here that we actually went to see our local fireworks; usually we're traveling to some far off place by now. Actually, this will be the first summer without a "family" holiday ever.

We walked home and things continued to just move on as if nothing happened. We talked about how we hoped our aging terrier didn't make a mess of the house since he's afraid of the slightest loud noise and how I should use the 10 cents off per gallon of gas offer we have built up at the local Safeway the next time I take my car to get filled up. It was so ordinary I got lost. I almost forgot that I just saw a couple thousand dollars of chemicals explode in the air in a colourful display of patriotism. It was so ordinary except for the fact that just how little everything that is happening around me bothers me as little as it should. Am I just so desensitized to it all that it just doesn't mean mean anything to me anymore? Have I grown cold? Or has everything just not hit me yet? Maybe it's on a delay, a few days from now I will snap into my senses and bawl my eyes out, enough to "create a river and then row up it" as an old joke we told back on the crew team as a sarcastic response to an overly dramatized sob-story. Everything is just a blur, everything looks the same, just a grey mass of emotion or lacktherof. It's not that I just don't care, it's just that I don't even know what to think anymore.

So why bittersweet? Well, one would be hard pressed to consider this a happy or even neutral (emotionally at least) event in my life, even if it was expected. It's bittersweet because while things didn't work out as we all hoped it would, at least we can work things out now and move forward and at least try and find some semblance of happiness in the future.

Happy 4th, eh?