#yeah the family situation was fucked in ways not analogous to adoption as it's generally practiced but they're still siblings. and then!!

[winepresswrath]

suddenly overwhelmed by umbrella academy feelings. i didin't particularly care for luther/allison but you have to commit to the bit. you're not stuck with your original ships but you've gotta follow through on the premise you've established; once you go literal flowers in the attic/doomed obsession you can't just fix it by letting luther meet another girl he did not grow up with but who does still have the same dad as him.

[windmillboy]

Late Night Thoughts 25ish whatever

Been awhile since I articulated my thoughts and emotions for posterity.  At risk of some of my newer friends/followers that I know irl, I’m gonna post this anyway.  Honestly, since I’ve grown closer to my already dear friend Eli, I genuinely haven’t felt any sort of “depression” or “anxiety” as I would’ve so called it years ago.  There may have been one or two episodes of such things (mostly over girls but hey watcha gonna do), but in general so long as he and I can hangout (which probably won’t stop for many years considering we’ve known each other since 3rd grade and go to the same college) everything seems like it’ll be okay, like good news is always on the way.  I dare venture to say that I’ve fallen in love with life again, for real though, like I did many years ago before I was ever in a relationship that in hindsight was extraordinarily toxic for both of us.  Though it itself hasn’t weighed heavily on me I can’t say I ever felt happy about my place in life since before then and I have Eli and Julian to thank for always making me laugh and taking any serious situation and making me take it less seriously.  Since coming to university my life has changed considerably.  Just the merely living on my own has done me a world of good, just hope I can keep it up with how expensive college is.  Eli once told me about his relationship with his dad and how much he really loves his dad, he showed me pictures of them dressing up together for halloween and how he wants to have a son so he can become like his dad, so I think tonight I’ll talk about my dad.  My father and I have always been at  odds for as long as I can remember.  Since moving away he and I seem to have become closer though.  The car rides he and I take to and from University are honestly some of my best memories with my dad.  And since those rides, I remember the happy stuff more.  Before I moved, whenever I thought about my dad, I’d remember all the times he beat me for crying, the times he abused my mom, all the times he just put me down.  But now...now I remember all those games of dominos at midnight while my mom slept and lectured me about sleeping earlier or especially that one game in the rain (not lining them up and knocking them down that’s a very white thing I think, every ethnic person I know always thinks of the actual game that they are meant to be played but that’s a story for another day),  I remember when we went to my cousin’s wedding we shared the living room his too brothers who snored so loud that in the middle of the night he says “Tri, you awake? you want to move somewhere quieter?”,  I remember every single book you made me read and every single essay you made me write.  when my grandma died and we only had enough money to send him to vietnam for the funeral...it was my birthday, I had just turned 14 and in the dead of night he had to leave to catch the flight...I was the only one he woke up and told me to study well...that felt like a dream,  all those times we’d drink tea together late at night in the sun room over looking the lake, all the times he showed me a new origami creation and how to make it, how to reverse engineer my toys and fix them, how he taught me to cook (something I take great pride in and apparently he does too according to my mom), I remember one time I was home alone (about 8 or 9) cause my mom had to take my sisters to school and it was snowing really badly and I got so scared I called my dad and he said if mom wasn’t back by the end of the hour he’d come home and spend the day with me (something that I now wonder what that would’ve been like),  I remember when I was very small staying home with my mom seeing him off to work and one day he forgot his glasses and I ran after him waving them in the air but he thought I was just waving goodbye so he kept driving,  I remember when I was really young I was terrified of illness and I got pneumonia and I blamed myself for why didn’t go on vacation that year and started crying because I thought I was going to die and my dad was the one that comforted me, I remember building my first computer with him, how he showed me to use power tools and solder things and how to use a knife though my mom gave me my first knife, when my mom was paralyzed from the waist down he was the one that cared for her when all I did was go out with my girlfriend at the time, and he even showed me how to draw which is the basis of my whole career now.  Even though we still fight, I think I’m honestly ready to forgive my dad.  Not like in the Lucille Clifton poem, but actually truly deep down I forgive my dad.  That also reminds me how he’s the one to have introduced me and made me think critically about every fucking movie I watch for better or worse.  Also he taught me about classic shakespear literature.  And how he taught me the premises of philosophy and made sure I was exposed to both his religion (Buddhism) and my mom’s (catholic).  He taught me to always look to improving yourself, to always keep my mind sharp, and oddly he was never the one to criticize my piano playing unless I became so mad I slammed the keys.  I remember he never talked down to me like a child.  Yeah he demanded respect unfairly at times in my opinion, but at least up until recently he no longer says “you’ll understand when you’re older” and perhaps something I’ve been arrogant about, but his English is’t as good as I think it is sometimes, something that genuinely scares me that one day I might not be able to talk to him when he gets older.  Lately the only thing he and I seem to be able to talk about is technology, a passion both he and I share.  I remember telling him how to build a full analog radio and the smile on his face was something I can’t say I ever saw before.  This last trip he told me his entire adolescent life before the war and when he escaped the communist regime.  My father’s past is something so mysterious to me.  He told me how he low key stole computer parts from other villagers with his brothers, how they would all get punished by his dad, how he worked pumping gas, how he built his first computer, how when he was younger he loved roller coasters but because my mom hates roller coasters he stopped going to amusement parks, how they give him a rush of life, but now that rush of life comes from other places like first having kids, how getting married changed his life completely, how he gave up smoking for my mom.  They say no matter what you become your father and in many ways I can already see it in me, but I no longer look at it like a curse, but a blessing.  At my uncles wedding my dad couldn’t attend because he’s always working out of state to support our family.  I’ve grow to really respect that now.  The pastor that adopted my parents here in america hadn’t seen my parents in more than 20 years that day, and they didn’t even get to see my dad.  That was also the first time they ever met me and my siblings.  I was only 14 at the time and was extraordinarily tired, but I remember the pastor took my mom aside, hugged her and said “[dad] did a fine job of raising those kids”.  At the time I laughed at that cause of how much pain I was in over this and that...but now, I think I turned out pretty okay, and my dad...he’s a good man at heart, it’s just how different it is here compared to Vietnam that he’s used to, something that I can’t even begin to imagine.  Now I know that he’s just worried about me.  Certainly there are things I’m still upset about, but I’ve grown much more understanding of his place in life as well as mine.  Couple days ago I called home and he was the only one awake to pick up, it was a quick check in but it felt good...All through out my life there have been many reoccurring nightmares but the one that has had the most presence through each stage in my life has been one that my dad died.  I’d always just fall to my knees crying in those dreams.  I would always just pound the ground and scream “why did you leave me”.  I remember the first time he had to leave to work out of state so my sister could go to college...at that point I was very angry with my relationship with my dad...but that night I cried, and that morning at went to my mom before my sisters woke up and just bawled my eyes out, I told her that I should be angry and that I am angry at him but I just couldn’t bare seeing him leave.  I remember I snuck out to the back of my house when he left just so I would be the last one to see him leave...it was a golden sunny day.  I didn’t cry when my sister left for college, I didn’t cry when I left for college, but that first night without my dad despite all the awful things just made me scared.  What if such and such was my last words to him?  Even now whenever he drops me off at my dorm I get scarred that maybe this is the last time I’d see him.  He never liked my driving especially since my accident.  But even still he always offers me the keys when it’s time to go back to school.  This one time I was getting sleepy and asked if I could pullover for him to take the wheel and he said it was fine for him to drive...I don’t know but that day when he drove me and just passed out...I felt like a baby again...my earliest memory is when I was in diapers and he came to pick me up from day care and I was always so happy cause he was always the first dad to pick up their kid...that day in the car when he took the wheel...I felt...safe, like a child being held by his father...