It was complicated. I just awkwardly smiled at everyone and said, "hi I'm that kid from Australia". I didn't know what I was doing half the time felt really, really out of place...
I also felt that people were kinda acting funny towards me. It was like a mix of admiration but at the same time they were sorta treating me like some alien specimen. Anyway, people were just people and i got along fine with 'people', and funnily enough the only people who made my life difficult were biologically related to me: the family of only aunt on my father's side.
So my aunt, her husband, and her daughter make it to the wedding. Her daughter (i.e. my cousin) was the one cousin I really didn't like because I thought she was ambitious in all the wrong ways. People would say she was brave and bold but to me it seemed to be a mix of pig-headedness and just being really, really selfish, not giving a fuck about anyone else or caring about consequences. Kinda showed at the wedding, where she expected to be treated like an important guest and given prompt attention, then wanted everything to be catered for. Everything was done to everyone's best abilities, but it was sooo taxing to have to deal with shit like that a day or two before a wedding. My cousin wanted to be shown around and wanted to do this and that, which was just inconvenient because nobody had the time for her and the attention was given to my brother because come on, it's his wedding.
Now this shouldn't have affected me too much, but I still got caught up in it because we were related. I was just sitting in a corner thinking about what a mess the whole thing was, when the lady next to me started talking about my aunt with some other lady. "That woman... she must be XXX's sister... my, they do look alike. But look how dark her skin is- oh, and her daughter's as well. She doesn't look too fit either. I didn't think XXX would have family like this..." And I was just infuriated because they knew who I was and they knew she was my aunt, but they just talked about her like I wasn't there, because they thought I couldn't understand Chinese or something. A part of me was just like, "stop talking shit about my aunt! I don't like her either but you have no right to do that!"
Knowing what other people thought about my aunt didn't really help though. I'd love to be all "I don't care what other people think", but that's a load of bs. My aunt always wanted to be in my company, which I thought was strange because I really didn't get along with her. In fact she seemed desperate to pull me to her side, probably because she knew everyone else thought she was weird, but the fact that she wanted to keep me at her side whenever I saw her just freaked me out. I mean, the reason I'm mildly aquaphobic now was because she pushed me into that swimming pool when I was 5, reasoning that I'd learn to swim out of survival instincts or something. Yeah, I hold grudges for a long time. It's hard not to when you almost drown.
So yeah there was the aunt who was desperate to keep my by her side and the cousin who wanted all the attention. Then my cousin gave me some lectures about life which I didn't really want to hear, because she wasn't that much older than me and most importantly I really don't respect her that much.
I think I just prefer my mother's side of the family in general...
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