ballerina girl

 ST is meeting my parents on saturday for the first time. im feeling anxious over it all. i dunno why, it will be fine. part of all this is the stress of this week coming up. 

my parents are doing some christmas eve party and my sister continuously keeps messaging me passively to tell me to come. and every time i see her name, i want to go less and less. apparantly there’s a christmas present under the tree, and i just dont want it. i really dont. its gonna be some bullshit that i dont want, dont need and has nothing to do with me at all. and to top it off SA and PA the arrogant siblings from upper class wannabe hell are going to be there. and i cant handle having to be fake and act like happy happy happy families. 

its ridiculous. and i know im somewhat bitter and somewhat emo and somewhat just melodramatic (i sometimes feel like the kid in catcher in the rye with all these phonies), but it sends my head into an anxious frenzy. i give myself little treats in my head on how to combat it all…i can spend the time with my mum’s helper. i can maybe take SK. i can maybe even just sit in another room and silently watch tv. maybe i could invite MN. all of them feasible. all of them not good enough. my mum’s helper will be busy no less, helping my mum. and taking SK is awkward for her, although i could at least give her her presents. and just going in another room…i will still be attacked by these people wanting to know about my life. and i dont want to tell them. i dont want them to know. and i certainly dont care about theirs. and i know that this is what christmas is about these days…making nice with everyone for one day of the year…but i cant help but feel that throughout it all, despite getting food and being able to give my parents their presents, i wont be with ST. 

unless on saturday, my dad invites him to the house. and then thats a whole different mind-fuck altogether. my smarmy sister trying to be a social butterfly and trying to "get to know him" when she doesnt even know me. she’s such a wannabe. an old beauty pageant winner with fading looks but still tries to grasp the crown with her withered hands. drink in one hand bad makeup on her face. lost in what is meant to be "style". this is the image i have of her in my head. i pity her. 

and the only reason i would let him come home with me, is so that i can feel a little at ease. so that i had someone strong to look after me. and i had someone i could focus my attention on without having to deal with other people. i could show him my house finally. finally show him my room. finally hopefully he could maybe get to know those parts of me he has no idea about. 

and this lunch on saturday. i dont know what is going on in my dads head. and i dont know how hes going to play it. mum and ST are taking all this as a good thing, that everything is hunkydory. but what if my dad is setting me up to tell me he doesnt approve for some stupid bizarre reason? he’s been nice about it. perhaps he’s even a little nervous himself…but…if i were to write what i wanted…what i really wanted….
i would want him to show an interest in getting to know ST. in asking him questions about himself. finding some sort of common ground that they could talk about and bond with. i would love love love to see smiles. genuine smiles and laughs about a joke they might make with each other. but they are too similar. and although their backgrounds are the same, they are 2 alpha males with different things on their minds…my dad- money, ST- me. 

my dad has already suggested to my mum that ST can take over "the business" without even having met him. and although im flattered that my dad is ready to trust him…it even makes me smile…i cant help feel its a little insulting as well. ST is his own man. with his own hopes and dreams. he’s not marrying into my family, im marrying into his. not even that, i am marrying HIM. just me and him. us 2. 

maybe its just unnecessary fear pent up from years of experience. ST wanted to meet at the hotel he worked at…wanted to set up a fancy dinner for free. something special. something lavish. my dad said no. now it is indian custom that the son-in-law cannot spend on parents-in-law. at all. they cannot eat anything that comes from his hands. im not sure why. i know my mum would already have not accepted ST buying a dinner…but my dad even went with it. saying that it would be inappropriate for it to come from ST’s side. and instead we do things at my dad’s hotel. what’s going through my head is…was this following with custom? or was this a power-play?
i know my dad’s side of the family believe in the custom…i remember when my married cousin brought some mangoes with her to the house…we kids ate them all, my aunt and uncle didnt touch a single one…and when i asked why, my uncle said he wasnt allowed to. it was against custom. 
but a little niggle is that my dad wants to be the one in control. in an environment that belongs to him. he kept saying "informally invite him to the hotel"…why not informally go to pizza express? so part of me feels like this is partly a game-play-move. and its worrying me. because i dont know what angle my dad wants. 

so im somewhat panicky. 

SK spent a couple days at my place this week. we did an all nighter of chatting. i finally spoke to her properly about AM and what it was like living with her and why i could never forgive her and was not interested in a friendship. apparently AM dropped SK as a friend and kept SSj. apparently they still message a lot. SK couldn’t figure out why they dont talk…we discussed what might have been her reasoning…i dont really want to or need to have another conversation about it all again with SK…but i think maybe that SSj and AM got themselves boyfriends at the same time. and that might be why AM (who was already pretty arrogant) decided she didnt need to be friends with SK any more. a networker throughout. 
it might explain why SSj stopped being friends with me…because her and AM had that special bond over boyfriends. and it’s probably why SSj didnt care much when i told her about ST, and was perhaps like so many, surprised that i actually managed to find someone. and why when she came to stay she acted like a little bitch last christmas. well i think its fair to say i have dropped SSj as a friend. she used me last christmas for a place to stay to get to SK’s house for her "ideal christmas". 
what gets me is that i treated these girls good. really good. i treated them as i treat all my friends. i look after them. make sure they have everything they need. FUCK ‘EM!

and that is also why i could never be a networker. because networker’s step on and over the good people to get to the bad. and i dont put up with it any more. SK and i were talking about networking and how its a dirty industry to be in. ST networks…but i hav

e never got the impression that he steps on people. he makes friends with everyone. not only because he needs help from them, but to help them as well. he’s just nice to everyone. and it works. and it means he gets to know people in all walks of life. from doormen to general managers. and he treats them all with equal importance. he doesnt act like the doormen are beneath him, he admires them for their years of work. and he admires managers for the position they’re in, and also realises that they are nothing special. thats a good networker. and i think that’s the kind of networker i could have been if i cared to. 

i think ive always considered myself a bit like marmite…you either love me or hate me. but from critiques and thinking back to my past…i think maybe ive always had a personality that people are drawn to. i was maybe likeable? which would explain why popular girls liked me at school, why i got to know so many at uni in my first year, and why when i do presentations aimed at 13 year olds, the message i got back is that i made people feel immediately relaxed and at home with me. 

and that comforts me. it comforts me in a way that is unbelievable. its like that piece of me that was lost when i was 17…that inherently nice part of me is still in there. that i am a genuinely good person. no matter how people perceive my actions. 

the older i get, the more i realise i am just like my mum. my mum had something inherently good about her that people could see straight off. there is something very pure about her and people from all backgrounds immediately warmed to her. i remember she had this magnetism for babies…something about her big teeth grin and the long gold pendant that hung from her neck. i dont know a single baby that didnt chew on it. and she loved it. God i miss my mum’s smile. 

there’s a picture i have of my cousin and mum from when i was 14months old. my cousin was 4 years old. dressed in a red bridal lengha. im wearing a leopard print smock. and there’s 2 pictures. my mum is laughing. laughing so hard that in the first picture she misses the camera when us kids are looking. and so hard that when she does look at the camera, we’re already trying to run away to play…so lost in laughter. i miss her. maybe i can bring that back. maybe meeting ST will bring back that part of her. that happy part of her. as long as my dad doesnt mess things up. not just for me, not just for ST, but for my mum as well.