After searching for days for the title of the movie I saw last Monday, I was able to find it at last in Star Movies' schedule.

First, I searched it using "Chun-Li" in google. One of the important characters in the film was also "chun-li" in the movie "Streetfighter". One of the actresses too (who had only minimal appearances) I thought was Joan Chen.

However, I thought the title might be about "women", "China's history", "Chinese family" but I was wrong so I could not successfully find it.

I was unfortunate enough not to watch it from the beginning.

Then, I searched in HBO and Cinemax's schedules but to no avail since it wasn't shown on those channels for this month.

The story of four Chinese women born in America but are still haunted by the past of each of their mothers who were born and raised in China. Their knowledge of their pasts have become their bridge in making their present lives meaningful and happy and understanding their difficult relationships with their own mothers.

I have been touched by this movie. It was really extraordinary...

My favorite quote? "Do not be afraid to lose him... for you will be found... you will be cherished..."

I am what I am now because of things I did and did not do yesterday. Yes. But, it's also because of things that did and did not happen to me.

I woke up gasping for air. My nose was full of snot and my ears and hair and pillow wet with tears. It took me a few seconds to realize that I was all grown up and it was just a dream. I struggled in the dark and felt the Mister stir next to me.

It's all coming back to me now.

I was in the old bathroom of my parents' house. It was the old rickety door without the door knob. (We shut it with two tiny, I mean smaller than my pinky, barrel bolts - one on the inside for when you're in there using the facility and one on the outside for when no one's inside.) I was locked in by my mother. I was banging on the door and crying for dear life. It was dark and my face and hands were grimy. I was banging on the door and crying for dear life. I was screaming: Mama, buksan mo! Mama, buksan mo! Parang awa mo na, Mama, buksan mo! (roughly translated: Mama, open! Mama, open! Have pity, Mama, open!) I was too short to switch on the light. Too frantic to even think. I was sobbing and banging on the door. I could hear her shouting from the outside. Bahala ka may ipis diyan! (rough translation: There's a cockroach in there!) In the dark I was convinced that they lurked in every corner. When my hair brushed my shoulder I freaked out (if it was possible to freak out in the middle of freaking out) and clawed at myself thinking that it was a cockroach.

And then I woke up because my nose stopped working.

I was locked in a room where my imagination tortured me relentlessly. I was probably the world's naughtiest kid. Thinking about it now, I remember being let out after I quieted down from lack of energy to move and empty tear ducts. I was almost always sitting on the floor when the door was finally unlocked. And then the light would be switched on and I would be asked to shower. In the light I would finally realize that there was no cockroach, but in the back of my head I always believed that they hid under the sink and behind the water closet.

I turned to the Mister and grabbed at him and made him promise he'll never lock me in, tears falling on his shirt. He made me get up and blow my nose so here I am. (blogging instead of blowing my nose..hahaha..so it's all backed up, and I'm breathing through my mouth but I feel better pouring out crap on to my screen)

I hope to never forget how horrible it was to be locked up as punishment. I want to remember how scary, how lonely and how painful it was. I want to never forget so that no matter what any of my little ones do (I hope to have a whole bunch of little me's...), no matter how angry I get, I won't end up locking them up and scaring them to death.

I don't want them to be a big girl like me (twenty six and counting!) and still be deathly afraid of cockroaches. I don't want them to go nuts in toilets when the door so much as jams a wee bit.

Because my babies must be big girls who won't cry over cockroaches and stupid toilet doors.

As expected my mum and I crossed paths. She refused to meet my eye. Who was I to insist? I turned away.

*blink*As we sat down to eat lunch, my father said: "Gagawin din yan sayo ng anak mo." (your child will do that to you too) I shrugged it off. I'm not sure if I replied verbally, but in my head, I was thinking, yeah, maybe if I was mean to her when she was grief-stricken, she would feel this way too.

This is very surprising since my parents have not spoken to each other in years. They have issues piled one over the other, higher than Mt. Everest, I expect. It makes me wonder where he gets those things he says to me in 'parent mode'. Like that for instance, was he still thinking about how my mother feels about my hard-heartedness, despite the bitterness between them? Or was it the parent in him speaking on her behalf? or, was it possible that he was thinking about how this would make me feel in the years to come? Did he finally realize that I have succumbed to much of my mother's bidding (whether I wanted to or not) all those years just to keep the peace? Maybe he just couldn't stand to have his family so divided. Who knows what goes on in the old man's head?

Which makes me wonder about my mother really. Do you think that all the bitterness hardened her enough to be mean to me during the time I lost my Sabin? (ooookay, while this doesn't seem healthy in the least bit, I cannot lie that I named her. I won't take it back, even if the Mister is completely unaware.) But why won't she believe me? Why would she call me a liar? Why would she even accuse me of stealing her money, or even just being nice to my father because of his money? Why, O why did she take my lying sister's word over mine? And how could she sit there wrongfully accusing me even as my husband half-carried me to the bathroom because I was hysterical and bleeding from post D&C stress? Why?

I have thought about this many times. I cannot lie and pretend to ask my mother for forgiveness. I know I was wrong to yell at her. She is my mother after all. But it was not my fault. My deceptive sister Kring was the root of it all. And she had the guts to cry like she was the victim. Everytime I think of her my blood boils. I ask God why He sent her my way. He hasn't told me anything yet. It really sucks to be me right now. All the blame is on me, because everyone thinks I can fix everything.

That is such a lie.

I wonder, could it be that my father cannot stand my sister's fake torment and is hoping that I would let things slide this time and get rid of all that divides us? I am not that kind and forgiving. What those two people (my mother and kring) have done to me is unspeakable. Hit me while I'm down, yeah. Typical enemy behaviour if you ask me. Certainly not something family would've done. At the time Sabin left, the only other person whose heart seemed broken was my father's. I could be wrong, but that's really how it felt. He acted the same way when my thirteen year old dog died during my highschool sophomore year. I wonder if what I felt was the truth and not what I had hoped for.

It's probably wrong to let this thing with my mother drag on any longer, but I do not have it in me to patch things up with her. The truth is my life feels better because she hasn't been around to force me to do things her way. I suppose one could say that I find it relaxing to be able to do as I please whenever I please. Absence of discipline and insanely immature but I can really breathe right now. Between this freedom and the back-breaking work of tip-toeing around her gazillion moods, which sounds better? Not exactly a difficult choice is it?

Well, I could play the martyr and try to make peace, but to what end? Every now and then she really does something mean to me. I wonder how my father can stand it? or is he still listening to that perverted version of truth spewing forth from the mouth of my sister?

i wonder, if the whole universe sees the truth, will things change? I really don't care what happened much, I just want the truth to come out. Strange how my father, in the slightest of ways, expressed his concern over my relationship with my mother. I suppose I would have to suffer for my stubborn ways in the future. I probably would regret being so hard on her. I have never really carried around this much negative emotion in my entire life. I guess my mother really brings out everything in me, good or bad. I'm not really one to pick fights and such, my problem has always been being too weak to ignore provocation. My sister has really done it this time. And without a display of remorse (real or pretend), I refuse to acknowledge her existence. I will not be hurt by her lies anymore. The only way to do that is to have nothing to do with her.

But it's stupid really. If I moved to a faraway country they probably couldn't hurt me anymore. I'm sure she's happy to have me out of the picture. All these years she has plotted against me, lying about me to convince everyone how mean I am. I can't believe my parents fell for it. I can't believe my mother took her word over mine when she's caught kring lying about her too.

It feels terrible to be overflowing with bitterness everytime I think about them teaming up against me after my entire universe went dark. They say Sabin was all blood and tissue, just a sac and nothing more. Why was it so painful to have all that blood and tissue removed? And how could God let all these things happen to me? Isn't He a parent too? Am I not His child?

I was a parent but for a short while, and yet it made me think about the gazillion things that I should do to help her find herself. I saw a lot of things in my mind's eye, why can't my mother see anything?

When I found out that I was pregnant, there were a million thoughts that went through me. Diving was out for a year, perhaps two. No beer and wine for two years. I'd keep stock of breast milk in the freezer for two years. I have to force myself to eat vegetables. I'll sing to her. I'll teach her a lot of things, from opening and closing her hands to walking and talking back to me. I'd punish her for bad or dangerous things that she will do. I would walk with her.  I hoped to be able to talk to her all her life. I hoped to be the kind of mother that she would share her secrets with. I hoped to be the first person she would call when she's in trouble for the rest of her life. I loved her then. I love her now. I wanted her to be my baby forever.

But babies don't stay babies forever. They grow up. They leave you. Mine left before we could talk. She left before I could even see her. I was meant to let her go. She was meant to leave me. And such is life. I was a parent for but one moment in this eternity of torment because she was gone. I think I experienced a fast-forwarded parenthood. But letting go hurt just as much, maybe even more. Who wants to compare?

I cannot imagine what it must be like for them when they sent me away for college. But I am grateful that my father decided it was the best thing to do. I learned to live alone. I gained a confidence that I never imagined I could have. He pushed me to jump and be free.

But while my father dreamed of us leading our own lives and finding ourselves in the wide world, my mother wanted to keep us. She's convinced that she must be part of everything that happens to us. It seemed to me that she sought to control me. (like that mum in little britain: bitty!)  Asking for permission to go to a party is like going through the eye of a needle.  A dozen things need to be accomplished before she even decides to let you go. And when she finally does, you have to be home by nine in the evening. (the party hasn't even started yet!) I quit asking for permission and always did as I pleased instead. The more she yelled, the less I listened.

Kids are not dumb. I am not dumb. I do not deserve to be yelled at. Screaming matches are not the answer. It never helped me. Whenever my parents started raising their voices or yelling at me, I yelled back even harder. I always wished that they would talk to me. I would've listened. I think my father knows that now. He hasn't yelled at me in years. My mother is still completely clueless. I wish it weren't so. But it's impossible for me to teach my mother anything because she is convinced that she knows better all the time.

My friend drove his three year old kid to nursery school last June. He walked her to the classroom. Before she went in she turned to him and asked him to leave and just come back for her when class was done. How brave. How beautiful. He walked away with a lump in his throat. This was his third child and yet letting go seemed harder than ever.

I know that parents are aware in their heart of hearts that they must let go of their kids sometime. But the desire to keep them is simply overwhelming. And so they forget. They get clingy, they whine, they threaten, they cry. Sometimes they win. Sometimes they don't.

I raised dogs and hamsters, now a red eared slider turtle. They are like babies to me. I have always felt an irrational fear of letting them go. I worried that something might happen to them. I worried that they would get hurt. But you know, you can't not let anything happen to your baby. What life is that?

To learn to walk a baby must be let go of. You hold on to your heart and prepare yourself. She might fall and hurt herself yes, but if you never give her the chance to do that she will never walk. Holding on to her will only deprive her of the life she was meant to discover and live.

I am not a parent just yet but I have been a daughter all my life. I know that I discovered who I am when my father left me in that apartment in Manila. I am thankful that my father was brave enough to let me go. I am even more grateful that he kept himself from checking on me all the time. I hated feeling that he deserted me when I needed help and he refused to give me any, but it helped make me a stronger person. I hated the way he did not treat us equally well, but I'm eternally grateful because it taught me that life is never fair. I thank my mother for forcing me to become like her, because it fired up my desire to find out who I was instead of living someone else's lie. I thank my mother, for accusing me of things I never did, because it reinforced my belief in being brutally honest at all times. I thank my mother, for endlessly trying to uncover my secrets, because it taught me the value of keeping my mouth shut and protecting truths shared between friends.

I will always be someone's daughter. While there are things about my parents that I could never like, I am eternally grateful. If not for all the good and the painful things they put me through, I would not have learned so much. But I am not my parents. I can only be who I have always been. They will not always like me, but I will always be their daughter.

But my mother keeps sticking her big head into my business, and she is making a huge effort to make her impossible-to-ignore presence known.

She sent me a note today asking for the bank certificates and such for that co-depositor *S*. A favor she asked of me a few years ago. I think she wanted her papers so she can sleep soundly at night knowing that I can't take her money. AS IF I WOULD STEAL HER MONEY!!!! She angers me to no end. She insults me. I would never do something like that no matter how horrible she treats me or talks to me.

And I was actually thinking about letting her off the hook on the way she attacked me after my d & c. She's impossible.

In her note she said something about the stuff I've written in this blog. And just to clarify, I did not start this blog to write bad stuff about people on purpose. This blog is about all the things I could not say out loud. Thoughts that I am trying to make sense out of. For goodness sake, if you're reading this again, THE UNIVERSE DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU.

I am tired of having to explain myself to her who refuses to listen. I am tired of all the crappy things she accuses me of. I am tired of all the lies. I am tired of all the bad things she says about me. It escapes me, how she never gets tired of complaining about me when I am the product of her excellent parenting skills.

My cousin has asked me to make peace with my mother. Our house-help has asked me to make peace with my mother. I am certain that my mother's entire family thinks that I am the most evil daughter in the world.

To my mother I am probably the spawn of the devil. But I am hoping that my father will silently disagree in his heart of hearts. I am ever so certain that my mother in law will disagree.

God knows I have not been as evil as that picture my mother paints. I have tried to make it work, even when I think she should be the more understanding of the two of us since she is after all the parent. But no. If I could, I would move to another country right this minute just to get away from her.

I am tired. I do not need this crap in my life right now.

I don't have time for this. I am too busy being sick.

Which brings me to the other distraction.

I am checking in tomorrow. They are taking out my healthy growing cyst on Thursday because it could rupture my important ovary and twist my fallopian tube. God, if you are reading this, please, don't let my mother come to see me. I do not want to have another bleeding problem because of her. I don't think I'll survive another post-hospital bleeding. This is not like that d & c. I don't want my doctor sewing me back together again. Please. You have not given me some of the things I asked for, but this one is really important. I just want to get better. The doctor said that this operation might trigger another flare-up. I really don't want that.

I do not know why the fates decided to drop bombs all over my life right now.

But there is no time for self-pity. No time to confront my unreasonable mother. No time to worry about what my mother's family and friends think of me. No time for diving. No time.

Let's hope the frozen section guy doesn't see anything distracting. Let's hope that the anaesthesiologist isn't distracted when he inserts that big needle between my bones. Let's hope the doctor does not get distracted when she hacks away at my body.

These are just the two minor distractions right now. Who would have thought that my mother could be that one other distraction in my life. How sad.

I will not let her do this to me. I refuse to spend more time thinking about her and all the bad things she says. She will not waste my time. She will not ruin my day.

I can do this. I have been through so much already. These things will not ruin me.

Eventually I'm sure I will not feel so bitter anymore. Eventually. I am not as mature as I'd like to be. pooh.

I am twenty five years old and still have absolutely no idea why I had to get perfect test scores all the time.
I remember being slapped on the hand with a one foot Orion plastic ruler whenever I gave her wrong answers whenever she reviewed the day's school lessons with me. Sometimes she would use the pencil or pen to hit me on the forehead. And I never quite understood how that could've helped me learn faster or desire to learn more in school. That was from first to third grade. I was above average in my class. My best subjects were reading, language and religion. At the end of the third grade school year I have taken to screaming at her whenever she lectured me about getting better grades in school.

When I turned nine years old, I realized how much I hated school. I hated it. I was tired of being told what to do. I was tired of being told what not to do. For all my hard work, nothing satisfied my mother and I could not see the point of being in school if all it brought me was distress.

By the time I was in fourth grade my grades started sliding down the charts. And the screaming contests at home slid up on the noise level. Even so, reading and science were my best subjects. My mother seemed to be at her wits end and dished out one punishment after the other thinking that if she punished me enough I would finally concede and give her a better report card the next time. She could not have been more wrong.

In my fifth grade I started to get failing marks. My parents were called in to meet with the principal because of my very willing participation in several acts of misdemeanor. My teachers were convinced that I worshipped the devil because I got caught listening to a Guns n' roses casette tape in school. Needless to sat my mother wanted me dead. She was already pinching my arm the moment I met her outside the principal's office. She told me I brought her shame. And she spanked me with the bamboo rod when we got home. My painful welts refusing to let me sit in comfort for days.

I hated her. I hated my mother as much as I hated school. I could not understand why I needed to have them in my life. Everytime she yelled at me I yelled harder. Whenever she screamed at me, I screamed louder. She couldn't make me do things anymore. And as detached as she was, she told me how she would never bother trying to teach me anything again. She told me she did not know what to do with me anymore. She told me that from then on she would pretend I never even existed.

That was the biggest lie I heard.

The following year, because she did not bother me so much, I got better grades. I still had to force myself to go to school, but only because my father said, it was either that or I'd have to work for his company.

She started pushing me again. The next year. it was probably the worst time of my life. I was twelve. My body had become my enemy and my 'mummy' was resurrected.

I realized that I hated her for pushing me. I already knew why I needed to finish school but because she was being horrid to me, I refused to give her what she wanted. I was good at a lot of things and I knew I could do more, but I could not let her win. I wanted her to feel my misery.

I was never my mother's daughter.

I almost did not make it to highschool because of the unbelievable low marks. My remedial class teacher wondered why I was there because I had a perfect understanding of all the lessons. To make them believe I belonged, I failed some quizzes on purpose. I knew I could be all that my mother wanted me to be. But I also knew that I would never give her that.

And so I only did enough to pass. Year after year. And she gave me hell for all of it too.

I hated her for pushing me. I hated her for forcing herself on me. I hated her for pushing me to be just like her.

I am not passing blame that I could have been a better student if she had not forced me so. I am simply saying that I refused to be pushed that way by someone like her.

I was not her daughter. I was merely a tool that she supposed she could use to gain a better spot at Parent-Teacher meetings. She supposed wrong. I did not bring home medals and awards because I couldn't stand to hear her brag about an achievement that was never hers to begin with.

All my life I kept waiting for her to let me be the one to find myself. I wanted her to set me free. Free from expectations and demands. Free from punishments that I never understood. All I wanted was for her to step back and let me get-up all by myself.

All I needed was to know that no matter what I did she would always be there for me.

She was never there when she did not agree with my choices. She refused to look at me when I made a choice that was different from what she would have picked out for me.

I was always alone because there was always her choice and the bad choice.

I wish she did not force or push me so. I loved learning. I was hungry for it. But I refused to give her what she wanted. And at one point I wished I lived in another country.