Starting Over
Being dragged into something you never planned to do in the first place could be quite literally...a drag. Tonight started as one of them.
I was dragged right into another unending (every Sunday of the week is a reunion requirement for the clan) family reunion. Not that I dislike seeing my relatives, but when it becomes a routine, boredom always gets to me like fly stuck on sticky paper. Same people, same topics, same uneasiness from nagging relatives. What agitated the whole issue was that tonight was a friday night. Meaning, night out with FRIENDS, not relatives. The deal behind the friday-sunday switch was that the "senior" clan members wouldn't be able to make it the coming Sunday. So everyone else (the children) would have to adjust schedules to fit theirs, hence the reunion tonight.
What irked me was that nobody even bothered telling me earlier about the switch. I had already made plans for a nice relaxing dinner with some friends. Up until the last minute I had to forego everything for the reunion. Disappointed, I dragged myself to greenhills and entered the venue. People could tell I wasn't having a high time being there. I hated every moment of it. I kept thinking to myself that I deserved a break from all this reunion stuff...until I saw my grandmother's expression.
Now anyone close to me would know the real story behind me and my relationship with my grandmother. They'd also know it wasn't always a happy one.
She looked as though she was heartbroken to see me not happy being there. It was the first time I saw that look, and it broke my heart to see that I was the cause of it. For someone who had a strong personality as my grandma, it hurt me seeing her hurt. And that was when I realized what compassion really meant. All the times I argued with duskwatcher about me having/not having compassion, finding what it means with words, defining and redefining it on my own, all of it came down to one look, and of all the people who would help me realize what compassion meant, it was my grandmother.
That look showed me years of strength, years of pain and years of wanting to see her grandchildren have a good life. Things that I never knew my grandmother was capable of showing. It was in this moment I understood everything. It was a turn of events that I wasn't ready to receive, but was shoved to me at the right moment.
I have to change my perspective. I realized that the time I had to spend time with her is very limited. I have to make it, at the very least, a happy one for her.
I was dragged right into another unending (every Sunday of the week is a reunion requirement for the clan) family reunion. Not that I dislike seeing my relatives, but when it becomes a routine, boredom always gets to me like fly stuck on sticky paper. Same people, same topics, same uneasiness from nagging relatives. What agitated the whole issue was that tonight was a friday night. Meaning, night out with FRIENDS, not relatives. The deal behind the friday-sunday switch was that the "senior" clan members wouldn't be able to make it the coming Sunday. So everyone else (the children) would have to adjust schedules to fit theirs, hence the reunion tonight.
What irked me was that nobody even bothered telling me earlier about the switch. I had already made plans for a nice relaxing dinner with some friends. Up until the last minute I had to forego everything for the reunion. Disappointed, I dragged myself to greenhills and entered the venue. People could tell I wasn't having a high time being there. I hated every moment of it. I kept thinking to myself that I deserved a break from all this reunion stuff...until I saw my grandmother's expression.
Now anyone close to me would know the real story behind me and my relationship with my grandmother. They'd also know it wasn't always a happy one.
She looked as though she was heartbroken to see me not happy being there. It was the first time I saw that look, and it broke my heart to see that I was the cause of it. For someone who had a strong personality as my grandma, it hurt me seeing her hurt. And that was when I realized what compassion really meant. All the times I argued with duskwatcher about me having/not having compassion, finding what it means with words, defining and redefining it on my own, all of it came down to one look, and of all the people who would help me realize what compassion meant, it was my grandmother.
That look showed me years of strength, years of pain and years of wanting to see her grandchildren have a good life. Things that I never knew my grandmother was capable of showing. It was in this moment I understood everything. It was a turn of events that I wasn't ready to receive, but was shoved to me at the right moment.
I have to change my perspective. I realized that the time I had to spend time with her is very limited. I have to make it, at the very least, a happy one for her.