Haven't been good.

As the title suggests, I haven't been feeling too good recently, at times even bordering on being stressed out. The bulk of my stress stems from my very dysfunctional family which unfortunately took a turn for the worse this supposedly festive CNY season. I'm sure people who know me know that I'm a very confrontation-averse person. I tend to do all that I can to avoid confrontations whereby everyone ends up with eggs on their faces, even if it means that I have to undertake some additional sai gang or have to put up with nonsense that I don't deserve.

This is exactly what put me in such a spot. I really don't understand why do people have to behave in such a manner. Exactly what do they get out of it? What does my grandma stand to gain by antagonizing my mom, by preventing me from contacting her? Yes, my mom is far from perfect, her character flaws and the bad decisions she makes sometimes make people really wonder just wtf she is thinking. But she is my mom afterall, no matter what she did, is doing or will do, nothing can change the fact that she gave birth to me. There is no way such a blood-tie can be removed.

On the other hand, my grandma is probably the most important person in my life. She's the one who brought me up and never left me on my own even when sometimes the whole world had seemingly left me for dead. Why do I even have to make this choice? I'm not even asking for everyone to get along all fine and dandy, I just want all the needless conflicts and confrontations to be avoided simply by not stepping on each other's toes. People always say you have to resolve the root of the problem, but what if the root is buried under years and years of history past? How can you dig it up and resolve it? I really hate to be torn in between such petty and needless conflicts, but it's really hard when there are so many parties involved and the fact that there's still a mofo behind the scenes stoking the flames. But that's another story for another day.

Sigh. I remembered having this conversation with one of my coursemates last week before the CNY holidays. He's 22 this year and is a NS regular, citing financial difficulties as the reason he signed on. He said he is totally not looking forward to CNY. Puzzling isn't it, how can someone not look forward to getting ang paos and an extended holiday? Then he told me all the ang paos his parents are gonna give are gonna come from his money, plus gotta buy alot of stuff and the price of everything is on the rise so he hope that CNY never comes. And then here I was complaining about my great shrink of ang pao collection.

Kinda put things in perspective doesn't it? He's only 1 year older than me and he has to give up 10 years of his life to bond to the nation just to get a stable job to support his family. While I'm always kpkb and getting stressed out by trying to support myself alone.

And then I have another coursemate who's father is the boss of a car rental shop. Every week he would book in driving different cars and damn, his white Subaru really owns. Suddenly I feel this urge to own a car, to have my own house and endless money to spend. Part of the reason my family is in a mess is also due to financial reasons. If we had tons and tons of money, would we have gotten along easier? There're so many things I want to accomplish, so many things I wanna own, so many places I wanna go and so many things I to see. I want the world at my feet and I know I will never be satisfied until I accomplish this, and yet I have this deep insecurity within me that I am not capable enough to achieve all the goals I set for myself. I have this deep-lying fear that my inadequacies will be exposed somehow and I'm just living a pipe-dream.

Am I really good enough? Everything that has happened to me and around me seems to suggest otherwise. I have too many failings, too many flaws and too many inadequacies that knocks me down time and time again. I have a big ego I know and I don't really want to admit that I'm at fault most of the time, because I honestly don't think I am. But I've been thinking lately, perhaps I'm really at fault. Perhaps my sense of self-righteousness is but a misguided and warped perception of reality. From my failed relationship to dysfunctional family ties, maybe the fault lies not with anyone else but me. How else do you explain why things can work out for others but not me, or are their problems just pushed under the carpet like everyone else.

Just exactly what do I deserve to get? Where do I go from here?