overload

8 pm. Somewhere near Paramus. Walking back to the bus stop, wiping tears, and wondering why I couldn't just hold it in and shut my mouth. Saturday was going ok; Ma and I were finally speaking to each other. But as usual, she has to buy something, and it has to be -- now! This time, a mattress for Jae.

We were driving to BJ's, thinking that they'd deliver -- or at least she was confident about that. Looking back, I should have asked 'em when I called, whether they also delivered; I could have avoided a conversation that should not have taken place -- I could have avoided driving upset. Oh well. Shit happens unintentionally.

If I could go back in time, I would have tuned her out when she started getting paranoid, forcing me to divert my attention from driving. I exited the wrong ramp and had to make a U-turn. She kept on telling me: don't make a U-turn here, there, etc. The final straw was when she spotted a cop writing a ticket to some car and proceeded to get hysterical: "Cop, cop! There's cop! Don't make left! Can't make left!" I'm not sure where it came from, maybe it was the Unconscious finally surfacing: "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" The literal translation would be "Be quiet!" but it's not as dramatic and it doesn't quite capture my rage, ya see.

No, it's best if I went back to the moment when she asked me to accompany her to go mattress shopping. Ya see, yank it from the roots and I wouldn't even have to regret saying things like: "You should have gotten a divorce! Why did you allow your children to continue living under the tyranny of that thing?" Perhaps the anger was prompted by hearing her yammer about how he's become so much like his own deadbeat father: sleeping late, waking up late, eat a meal, take a nap, another meal, walking off the consumed calories at the nearby park, surfing news sites in lieu of flipping through papers -- just like Deadbeat. As I was hearing how Pa was behaving exactly like the despicable man I've come to know as my grandfather -- a sexist pitting his own children against each other, and not wishing success for his children -- I could not believe this woman, supposedly my mother, would allow her own children to grow up under a poisonous man! Baffling stupidity! And for what? Money! And so did we enjoy great wealth? Hell no! Every day, these two idiots would duke it out, yelling about money! It just occurred to me today that my mother probably never grew up being unhappy, and that she doesn't care that her children are unhappy.

Pa wants to be pampered by his offsprings, Ma wants complete control of 'em so she can shape their lives to her pleasing! So I told her that she ruined my life by coming to live with me while I was still in school. She retorted by reminding me that in fact, I was the one who asked her to come -- a decision I will regret for the rest of my life. At that point, I snapped; I couldn't bear to hear, "You're so weird and psychotic." I saw a bus stop, I parked and put the hazard lights on and got out. She insisted that she'll get out instead but she never did. She didn't even bother calling my name. I walked as fast as I could. From the bus stop, a sidewalk led to a couple of blocks to a dead end. I furiously turned right and continued walking in anger. I looked for tissues in case the faucets let loose: None. It was funny; I was finally away from her -- alone! -- and I couldn't even heave cuz I didn't have any tissue!