Visiting back 'home' usually comes with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I'm super-excited to get to see my brothers (and semi-excited to see my parents). On the other hand, I get to, once again, be entrenched in the quiet war zone of my parents' marriage. And, I know there's a decent chance I'll get into at least one argument with my mom.
'Home' is in quotes because it really felt different this time. My first couple of days back was an adjustment period. It felt more like I was on travel/visiting than being back in the comfort of home. The feeling of 'not being home' was a big shock, actually. Maybe it's because I haven't visited in over two years >_<
Arguments with mom, yes. Two this time. Except unlike the past, I wasn't alone in my plight. It was the three of us -- me, being reminded of just how important it is to keep my Chinese from deteriorating, D, trying to assert himself as a fully-aware adult with his own thoughts and opinions, and R, always analyzing and being quietly observant. I'm not sure we actually got any of our perspectives across, but I always hope that we really are making some minuscule progress, even if it's not immediately evident =/
The upsides include, of course, seeing family. And it felt sooo good. Visiting grandma and grandpa and seeing CL, JL, JX, and aunt and uncle. The last time I saw JJ/JM was probably more than eight years ago! Why so looong?? I always thought of myself as being independent and doing whatever I wanted, but in retrospect, maybe sometimes I was too afraid. I think it was hard for me to resolve my own mental block from all that drama during high school. I just wanted to escape, maybe.
We went out with my dad one morning to see his daily swimming routine. His diligence is absolutely amazing. Warm-up was jump rope. He didn't quite make 900 jumps like he'd hoped, but the 800+ jumps certainly made us tired just watching him. Then, he stood on the ice (the whole pool was frozen over) and re-made his little hole from the previous morning so that he'd have a place to dive in. And there he went, in and under. Wow.
Mom made a lot of good food. Unfortunately, my system wasn't ready for seafood meals every day T_T She also had some homemade wine to share, a really strong one from green grapes and a much sweeter, lighter one from red grapes. The latter one was really good ^-^
D, R, and I spent a lot of time together, watching stuff and just chatting. That was the one thing that really finally gave me a feeling of 'home'. D&R ^o^