What does it mean to be driven? Driven is a concept that is certainly foreign to me. As of present, more than ever. And who can blame me, I've never been given a chance to be drive when I was young. Self fulfillment is something foreign to me, now that I think of it, I've never felt anything upon achieving a 'goal'.
To understand the present, we have to first examine the past.
Part 1
My maternal great-grandfather was in the agricultural business, and he was rich. He was successful and well liked, but he was a fool when it came to women. One day, the angry man living in the clouds decided to have a little laugh, thus, my great-grandfather was killed after a coconut fell on his head.
A week after the, my great-grandmother wedded his assistant.
And so, all the children that he left behind, and his assets, were passed down to a drug addict. Due to a little ingenuity in his part, his assets weren't squandered immediately; In his will, he gave away much of his fortune to his children, on the condition that portions of it be released every decade. Nonetheless, my great-grandmother, her new husband, and her children, wasted away the money. The children did not live a very comfortable life, under the care of a woman who was spaced-out half of the time.
A policeman had a once night stand with my grandmother when she was in her late teens, and she married that man, my grandfather. Their first child was a boy, my grandfather hated him for some reason, and never talked to him, until he got into a motorcycle accident and died in his late teens. My grandmother bore three more, two girls and another boy, one which would later on give birth to me and pass down her demons as well. While granny was madly in love with grandpa, grandpa was a womanizer and could not reciprocate the feelings, needless to say, the children were frequently showered with wrath and unhappiness. Marry in haste, repent at leisure.
~End of Part1~
The woman who told me this story, was none other than my Aunt, my mother's sister. She came down to Singapore asked my father out for dinner, and talked to us. I have a baby sister called Chloe, and she's 5 this year. In the past, when my aunt came over with her family, she's stay at my mother's place. It was there that the family witnessed the insanity of my mother. Truth be told, I used to dislike her, for she was every bit as ugly as my mother. I've witnessed her abuse her kids (my cousins) just as badly, and I hated her for it.
Over dinner, my aunt told us that she was a very unhappy person. She would vent her anger on her children and beat them so often it became a habit. Initially, she believed her behavior to be normal, after all, did her mother not beat her so, and did her mother's mother no beat her so? Aye, for Ka is a circle. Her husband, my uncle, who came from a normal family, was pretty horrified by her behavior. So came a day where she decided to ask around, and was told by her friends that her behavior was incorrect. She saw a doctor, and she was diagnosed with a mental illness. I can't remember the name of it, but I remember her saying her brain's happy part, way smaller than her unhappy part. She believed that this was the case for my mother as well.
Part 2
Years later, my air stewardess mother met my father, and they were married, and I was born. Right from the start, the marriage was an unhappy one. For as long as I can remember, they were two persons simply living next to each other. For as long as I can remember, living with my mother was torture. Life was like prison, I was not allowed to go out and play with friends or enjoy my childhood. They say that once you grow older, you'll understand and appreciate how your parents beat you, because they do it, out of love. They do it for your own good. I think back of it now, close to 20 years of age, and I feel hatred, and anger. I never became a better person after being beaten for spilling water, for playing with cutlery, or for my mother's hand phone slipping through her fingers.
If everyone has a purpose, what is mine? My life revolved around statistics, letters, and numbers in my youth. I was beaten for not doing well in kinder garden tests, can you believe it? I was beaten for not doing well in Spelling tests, for not doing well in class, for playing pranks on friends, for having my school bag torn by bullies, from Primary school all the way up till Secondary school for not doing well in tests (7-13ish).
Fulfillment, motivation, reward. What is that? Was I ever rewarded for doing well? In spite of being labelled mentally disabled by that worthless sack of shit of a mother, I was still top in my class, top the school a bunch of times in examinations too. But it never meant anything, because someone was always better. I'd score 96 on my math test, my mother would look at the paper, give me a brief hug, I'd feel good for a minute, then she'd call her friend, and find out I was merely fourth in the class, and she'd scold me and make me do more revision for making mistakes that made me lose out to 'that guy who isn't really smart but has a mother that spends a lot of money on tuition'.
I'd get third in the year for English finals, and it wouldn't be enough, because I was third. I never did school homework, I'd leave it all under my desk, and every year there would be a glorious day where my teacher found the work, called my mother, and boy did I get it. Teacher's thought I was some sort of prodigy, not doing homework but still doing well. Idiots. The minute school ended, I'd have extra classes, or tuition as they call it here, for hours, every god damn day. School ends at 1.30 pm, and there were just days that I had tuition from 2 all the way till 10.30. Every tutor gave me homework, twice as hard as that I get from school, twice the load. And on top of that, my mother would make me do revision papers. They will be days where my mother would not let me eat till I finished them all. I had a tutor, an old woman with 6 fingers on one hand, who would beat me during our sessions, for not completing her homework, for not being able to read a Chinese character, or for not reading our passages with enough music in my voice. If I ever meet that woman again. I will kill her. I hated that part of my life so much, and I will never forgive, not ever in my life, my family for knowing, and letting it happen.
Once my parents divorce, I was free from the stick, I've been failing papers from the age of 14 till now. I have no idea how I did not get held back a year, because I have never passed physics or chemistry once. Label me lazy, but I hate school, I hate work, and school was always play time for me, I never payed attention in school, never bothered too, because everything would be shoved down my through afterwards anyways.
I've been drifting through life for the past 5 years, just going through the motions, waking up because I have to, going to school because I have to, doing things so I don't get yelled at. I'm tired of life. And now that I think of it, I've been tired since I was 11 years of age. The more I think back them more confused I get. When I was young, the only thing I'd look forward to, was sleep, that would be the highlight of the day, upon waking up. I'm so tired of people telling me what to do, so tired of my family. I'm only 19 and I feel that I've never lived. In my dreams I go away, far far away, to a place with lush trees, flowers, green, mountains, waterfalls, rivers that are crystal clear. In my dreams I get to sit down on plush, warm grass, and stare at the clouds as the days goes by. That is never going to happen.
~End of Part 2~
Prologue
+ Show Spoiler +
My mother was pregnant at the time of the divorce. She was having an affair with another man, so it was natural that my father believed it not to be his. However, it turned out to be his blood after all, through a DNA test. Hence, Chloe was born. Post divorce, my mother decided that she would screw up the girl as well, except this time, she'd do it proper. When Chloe reached the tender age of 3, her mother decided that she would become a prodigy, making her learn Japanese, French, Chinese, English, Violin and Piano. At somewhere around 4, Chloe was dropped out of Kindergarden, because my mother was unhappy that she was unable to jump enough levels, and that the big class sized were holding her back, so she had her go for tuition classes full time at the age of 4. According to my cousins, that sick fuck of a woman will make my sister up at 7 every morning, force her to play the violin, and film it.
I meet my sister once a week, and every day that I meet her, since she was three, she would have bruises. Initially it was a mark here, and a mark there. Then the bruises multiplied. Her glasses were often bent out of shape and broken. And my loser, sack of shit dead beat dad would scold her for not taking care of her glasses, because he believed that her glasses broke often, and were bent out of shape, because she took them out using one hand. Those glasses were broke, because she's been slapped and punched on the face. I would know, I had my fair share of glasses broken in the past. Now the 5 year old girl meets me with makeup on her face, just last week her eyes were bruise. The skin on her fingers are always torn and tattered, no doubt from missing notes when playing the violin. When asked, she will always reply, I fell down, except of course when she's alone with me, she'll tell me the truth.
My father makes me take pictures of the bruises, because he feels that it makes him less worthless than he already is. It only makes me more angry. First and foremost, because these pictures serve no purpose and will not hold up in court, I have checked. Second, if he really cared, he would do something. He would have done something years ago when my mother fucked me up, but he didn't do anything, and he simply forgot about it.
Lest you believe I'm exaggerating, here is one photo I took. Before that day, I only got to see the damage done on her arms, legs and face, but never on her body.
"I was so clumsy I fell down on the floor"
I meet my sister once a week, and every day that I meet her, since she was three, she would have bruises. Initially it was a mark here, and a mark there. Then the bruises multiplied. Her glasses were often bent out of shape and broken. And my loser, sack of shit dead beat dad would scold her for not taking care of her glasses, because he believed that her glasses broke often, and were bent out of shape, because she took them out using one hand. Those glasses were broke, because she's been slapped and punched on the face. I would know, I had my fair share of glasses broken in the past. Now the 5 year old girl meets me with makeup on her face, just last week her eyes were bruise. The skin on her fingers are always torn and tattered, no doubt from missing notes when playing the violin. When asked, she will always reply, I fell down, except of course when she's alone with me, she'll tell me the truth.
My father makes me take pictures of the bruises, because he feels that it makes him less worthless than he already is. It only makes me more angry. First and foremost, because these pictures serve no purpose and will not hold up in court, I have checked. Second, if he really cared, he would do something. He would have done something years ago when my mother fucked me up, but he didn't do anything, and he simply forgot about it.
Lest you believe I'm exaggerating, here is one photo I took. Before that day, I only got to see the damage done on her arms, legs and face, but never on her body.
"I was so clumsy I fell down on the floor"