Dad's Postcard and Care Package

My dad insisted on driving me to the airport, just like he insisted on dropping me off at Stanford before the school year started. He's back from his business trip to China (perhaps "business trip" to "China") now. He gave me a postcard with a penguin on a polar bear that, in a nutshell, said:

It made me sad to see you and your sister fight.

The divorce will be legally processed by the end of the month, and afterwards I will be going overseas and who knows what your mom will be doing. Both of us are in poor physical health. For all you know, the two of you might be the closest family either of you have shortly. You guys should get along.

I have one New Years' wish. I wish you guys would add me on Facebook. You guys are 18 now, I'm not trying to control your life. Please add me so I can know how you guys are doing.

Know that your mom and I will always love you very very much. You can always talk to us about anything.

Love, Dad 1/5/12

And my thoughts about it? Fuck you dad. It makes you SAD to see us fight? Boo frickin hoo. How do you think it makes us feel when you and mom fight, hmm? Both of you are in poor physical health? Maybe if you and mom stayed together, lived together, and looked out for each other like you had for the 16 years before my junior year, like my mom did for you when she saved your life in Michigan. And don't you use Facebook friendship as a starting point for repairing the damaged father-child relationship. If you want to get on better terms with us, you better talk to us, face to face, and tell us honestly everything you've done for the past two years, like we've beckoned you to do on numerous occasions. Maybe then we'll start to open up to you and trust you again. It's hard to give you the benefit of the doubt on anything when you've cheated on mom. It sounds resentful, but it will take much more effort than social networking to set you on the right path again. I don't like holding grudges, but I feel justified, for myself and for mom, in holding this grudge.

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Today was my second day back to Stanford after winter break and first day of winter quarter. I spent the majority of my day upstairs in K-, K-, and L-'s room, and some time in those hours they had sneaked together, put all of their stuff in a box, packaged it, wrote a meaningful note on origami paper and folded it into a flower, and delivered it to the doorstep of my room. And at midnight, they misled me into thinking they wanted to watch How I Met Your Mother so I'd go downstairs to get my hard drive, and I found it at my doorstep.

At first I had no idea what it was, and I asked my roommate about it, and he didn't say a word about it. He just shrugged even though he knew who was behind it. Very thorough planning on the part of K-, the deliverer. It was addressed to "Larry Lewis Liu" so I was able to narrow it down to a few people who knew about the middle name that K-'s friends gave to me.

I took it upstairs to try to find L-, who I thought was behind it because he said he had a present for me, but to my surprise, there were like 8 people in my RA S-'s room. At that point, I knew whatever was up was a bit bigger scale than I expected. I opened it, and the cardboard flap that opened up from the top the box said "CARE PACKAGE :)"

Turns out, over break, eleven of my dormmates had collaborated and decided they'd each bring me something that represented where they were from. From snacks, to soap, to homemade desserts, to magnets, to a hat (that is arriving in the actual mail soon!), to a book by an author I enjoy. There was a card written in an origami flower that L- folded, in which they each wrote an adjective or descriptive phrase they liked about me. I was speechless. I managed to choke back tears long enough to give everyone a hug and then excuse myself and leave under the guise of bringing the box back downstairs.

I have never felt so warm and loved before. It's an incredible feeling. And they couldn't have given it to me at a time when I needed it more. I was at an emotional low after cleaning out my room in preparation for selling our house, going over divorce paperwork with my mom, and my dad's postcard in the last few days of break. My last class of the day was a lecture for a class titled Love as a Force for Social Change, and as interested as I am in the class material for the sake of acquiring knowledge and education, all the anecdotes that the professor and students shared about how love has manifested itself in their lives only made me miserable because I did not have anything to share that was remotely as cherished as my colleagues cherished theirs.

I could not have asked for a better cohort of dormmates. No matter what happens, I will treasure for forever the past five months I've spent with them and the six to come.

Cheers! Oh oops nope just kidding.

So today eating Christmas Eve dinner with my mom and sister (dad once again somewhere in Asia on a business trip, suspiciously over the holidays again), my mom had proposed a toast. I had first clinked glasses with my mom, and then I kept it raised towards my sister. She looked at me and just drank.

I was going to write a card and wrap the Christmas present I had bought for her towards the end of this past summer, but you know I'm honestly not feeling the holiday cheer. We don't even have a tree set up (it's in our garage too) and we're using this potted plant as a stand-in.

Good grief I despise coming here. Can't wait to go back home. Note to self: look into that summer psychology program.

The day before college begins

NSO starts tomorrow.

My dad flew home today. No tears were shed in a sentimental goodbye.

(In the meantime, my sister made my mom cry by complaining about not being able to go souvenir shopping ceaselessly after she drove over 250 miles in back to back days and was exhausted.)


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I don't know what to feel right now. I'm not nervous. I'm not anxious. I'm pretty excited, but not bouncing off the wall excited.

I just have this nagging feeling that I forgot something back in Washington. Not something tangible though, not a belonging I needed to bring to my dorm or anything. I guess I just feel like I left a lot of loose strings in the various storylines of my life back in Washington.

My mom is pissing me off.

My mom holds literally everything against me. She is so full of contradictions and so devoid of sense. Let's see what accusations I've received recently.

• My sister goes out and parties too much with her friends, therefore it becomes my sole responsibility to care for her because nobody else will. Way to address the root of the problem!
• My mom tells me that she doesn't want me attending her breast cancer examinations because, after all, it's breast cancer and that gets awkward. Then, she says I'm heartless and impatient because I never go with her to examinations and help her translate what the doctors say.
• My mom tells me that she doesn't want to get involved with college stuff (applications, housing, meal plans, move-in stuff, basically all the orientation things) because there's too much English, and that she trusts I can handle it. Then, she says she feels hurt that I keep shutting her out of college information, and she feels unwelcome and not knowledgeable when she talks to other parents at any admit receptions/sendoff parties.
• I've finally turned 18, and therefore it is my responsibility to become more independent (with planning my own activities, chores, work, etc.). Oh wait! How dare I not inform her of every little detail in my life?? She didn't raise me 18 full years just so I can sever family ties. I'm still her baby, and she has every right to know who I talk to, what I read and do.
• When I do tell my mom something, she then proceeds to forget within the next five minutes. Then she'll ask me again, and forget again. If she asks some three or four times, I'll tell her, I've told you before. Then she'll condescendingly question--is this how you're treating me when I'm in my mid-40s? I can't imagine how bad you'll be when my memory's even worse later on. How hard is it to just repeat it once more? Believe it or not, just because you've forgotten something I've told you, doesn't make me in the wrong for not telling you. Sure you can't really be blamed for forgetting, I understand it's a biological thing that comes with aging, but I sure as hell am not intentionally disrespecting you, nor in the wrong for being annoyed at repeating something as many as eight or nine times.

Whenever my mom talks to me, she is always card stacking. Always. I do almost all the chores because my sister doesn't, act as a liaison or translator between my mom and school administrators and teachers, cashiers at the grocery store, handymen for car maintenance, and pretty much fucking everything. I've must've moved tens of thousands of pounds of groceries, and helped her lug the 40ish-lb vacuum cleaner up an down the stairs hundreds of times.

And the worst part is, I don't even try to point out how wrong she is when she berates me for all this shit. She'd just say I have no right to point out her mistakes because she's my mom. I just sit and listen to her hurl these accusations. Today, she got mad at me for looking angry when she's talking to me. Am I not allowed to look angry?

When I was like 7, my 2nd grade teacher was trying to explain the difference between house and home. She said that house is just a physical object, but home implies an associated feeling of comfort. Seeing those "Welcome home" signs in pictures of past Stanford NSOs makes me think: I'm so damn glad I'm leaving for college soon, because that's where home is. It's kind of silly how teachers try to teach little kids that with the word "family" carries implied feelings of affection and love. The last two years of my life have really proven otherwise.