No title for this post...just a little quick note.
I got my MCAT results on Tuesday...basically, I won't be going to med school next year. I got a 24L...not exactly competitive, especially as an international student with limited options. Currently, I'm trying to figure out what to do in my downtime (apart from rewriting my MCAT, that is). Any one know of any good postbac programs that take international students? Please let me know.
Throughout this week, I've been thinking a lot. Thinking about my future, thinking about my current existence, thinking about my past. Thinking about friendships that seem to be waning...Thinking about the little skeletons that had been hiding previously, but seem to be playing peek-a-boo in my mind. Confronting some of my fears...and letting God reassure me! I'm not depressed...more like I'm in a state of deep contemplation.
I'll be back to update soon....just as soon as I get out of this contemplative funk. Could be tomorrow, could be a month from today; I just want to stop this trend of sad posts.
Sai anjuma.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
December 15, 2004....
I was bored earlier on today, and I was reading my OLD diaries when I came across this entry:
Dee (I called my diary Dee),
Today is a BAD day! What I feared would happen for so long actually happened today. Why today of all days?Two days before the crusade, 12 days before I leave for the states? God, how could you allow this to happen to me?! N [my eldest brother] just found the note I wrote so long ago in anger, a note that I thought I got rid of...to make matters worse, he gave it to popsie! I just got out of the room, after talking with mumsie, and I feel so bad, coz she's hurting, and popsie gave me an ultimatum through her. I'm NOT looking forward to tonight.
The entry ended there. I never updated after the night in question. I guess at this point you're wondering about the content of the note that was causing so much stress right? Well, in that note/letter, I had basically chronicled the abuse I had gone through (and the ages at which the incidents occurred). I remember now that I had kept the letter folded in my diary, and when got home from school that term, I'd seen it and planned to dispose of it, but I got interrupted (I think my mum had called me to help her with something). Anyways, I guess it fell out of my diary, and my eldest brother found it when he was cleaning the living room the next morning. My bro. N is very hot tempered, and he took the letter straight to my dad. I think what was upsetting him so much was the fact that the second sentence of the letter said: AGE 6: Molested by my cousin. My brother found that intolerable!
My dad basically gave my mum the letter and told her that by the time he g0t back from work that evening, he wanted to know three things: 1. Who was the cousin in question? 2. What exactly did he do? 3. When I'd become such a foul -mouthed person (Coz that note was FULL of swear words...like I said, I was mad). My mum called me to her room and grilled me till I gave her the person's name. She was so hurt cos it was her sister's son, the one my parents treated like a son. She asked me why I'd never told her abut it, and I told her why: Because I knew they'd both react like this. My dad and brothers would threaten the cousin in question, and my mum would be shattered by it. I love my mum to death and I hate to see her hurt in any way, so I felt I was protecting her. I guess I failed at that.
In actuality, this note came from my therapy at school. I got to a point where I was really depressed and almost suicidal. I was beginning to remember a lot of things I'd tried to suppress for s long, and I did not like the picture my memories were painting. One day I decided to just be strong about it, and I went to see my school counselor. One of the things she told me to do was to write out how I felt whenever any of my moods hit me (advice I still follow to this day), and that letter was one of the products of my writing. Well, back to the story.
I spent the whole day in fear. What, and how was I gonna talk to my dad? I couldn't look my mum in the eye either. I felt like I was so unclean, like I'd committed a major offense. Surprisingly, when my dad came back from work that night, he didn't call me aside. He didn't yell at me like I thought he would. He called me Ada Daddy like he always did. It was like he'd forgotten the whole episode. Instead he smiled at me, and sat me down, and we had a 'normal' evening. Back then, I thought he was having avoidance issues, but in retrospect, I've realized that he was just coping with his shock as he knew best. I think our family coping mechanism is "Forget about it. Act like nothing happened." All the same, I think it hurt my daddy a lot. He'd always been super intuitive where I was concerned, and my dad always seemed to know when something was wrong with me; he just couldn't fathom how he'd missed something this huge. We always were super close, me and my dad. I'm his only daughter, so I guess that's why.
I thought it was all forgotten, but the night before I came to the states to start college, I had a talk with my dad, you know 'THE TALK' parents give before you leave home...don't do drugs, don't be promiscuous, focus on your studies, etc etc. I thought it was just my dads routine talk till he said, "Ada mu I never talked to you about that note. I'm upset you used such foul language, you're not like that. Most importantly, I'm sad that you couldn't say anything to me. A wum nna gi. And we are closer than most fathers and daughters are." He didn't say anything more than that, and I think it was because of the suspicious sheen I saw in his eyes. My father is a proud man; he is not one who easily shares his emotions.
We never talked about the issue after that, but it still hurts me sometimes when I think about it. Not the abuse, cos I've since moved on from that by the grace of God, but by the tiny rift it created between me and my dad. Okay honestly, the abuse still sits in the farthest reaches of my mind a bit; it even helps me rationalize and justify some flaws and aspects of myself I don't like. But, I'm tryna move on from it...I don't even want it in the farthest reaches of my mind anymore. I want to be a clean slate, I want to let go completely.
There, I just shared a little bit more of myself...maybe when I truly share the rest I'll let go. Who knows? We'll see.
Nodi nu ofuma.
Dee (I called my diary Dee),
Today is a BAD day! What I feared would happen for so long actually happened today. Why today of all days?Two days before the crusade, 12 days before I leave for the states? God, how could you allow this to happen to me?! N [my eldest brother] just found the note I wrote so long ago in anger, a note that I thought I got rid of...to make matters worse, he gave it to popsie! I just got out of the room, after talking with mumsie, and I feel so bad, coz she's hurting, and popsie gave me an ultimatum through her. I'm NOT looking forward to tonight.
The entry ended there. I never updated after the night in question. I guess at this point you're wondering about the content of the note that was causing so much stress right? Well, in that note/letter, I had basically chronicled the abuse I had gone through (and the ages at which the incidents occurred). I remember now that I had kept the letter folded in my diary, and when got home from school that term, I'd seen it and planned to dispose of it, but I got interrupted (I think my mum had called me to help her with something). Anyways, I guess it fell out of my diary, and my eldest brother found it when he was cleaning the living room the next morning. My bro. N is very hot tempered, and he took the letter straight to my dad. I think what was upsetting him so much was the fact that the second sentence of the letter said: AGE 6: Molested by my cousin. My brother found that intolerable!
My dad basically gave my mum the letter and told her that by the time he g0t back from work that evening, he wanted to know three things: 1. Who was the cousin in question? 2. What exactly did he do? 3. When I'd become such a foul -mouthed person (Coz that note was FULL of swear words...like I said, I was mad). My mum called me to her room and grilled me till I gave her the person's name. She was so hurt cos it was her sister's son, the one my parents treated like a son. She asked me why I'd never told her abut it, and I told her why: Because I knew they'd both react like this. My dad and brothers would threaten the cousin in question, and my mum would be shattered by it. I love my mum to death and I hate to see her hurt in any way, so I felt I was protecting her. I guess I failed at that.
In actuality, this note came from my therapy at school. I got to a point where I was really depressed and almost suicidal. I was beginning to remember a lot of things I'd tried to suppress for s long, and I did not like the picture my memories were painting. One day I decided to just be strong about it, and I went to see my school counselor. One of the things she told me to do was to write out how I felt whenever any of my moods hit me (advice I still follow to this day), and that letter was one of the products of my writing. Well, back to the story.
I spent the whole day in fear. What, and how was I gonna talk to my dad? I couldn't look my mum in the eye either. I felt like I was so unclean, like I'd committed a major offense. Surprisingly, when my dad came back from work that night, he didn't call me aside. He didn't yell at me like I thought he would. He called me Ada Daddy like he always did. It was like he'd forgotten the whole episode. Instead he smiled at me, and sat me down, and we had a 'normal' evening. Back then, I thought he was having avoidance issues, but in retrospect, I've realized that he was just coping with his shock as he knew best. I think our family coping mechanism is "Forget about it. Act like nothing happened." All the same, I think it hurt my daddy a lot. He'd always been super intuitive where I was concerned, and my dad always seemed to know when something was wrong with me; he just couldn't fathom how he'd missed something this huge. We always were super close, me and my dad. I'm his only daughter, so I guess that's why.
I thought it was all forgotten, but the night before I came to the states to start college, I had a talk with my dad, you know 'THE TALK' parents give before you leave home...don't do drugs, don't be promiscuous, focus on your studies, etc etc. I thought it was just my dads routine talk till he said, "Ada mu I never talked to you about that note. I'm upset you used such foul language, you're not like that. Most importantly, I'm sad that you couldn't say anything to me. A wum nna gi. And we are closer than most fathers and daughters are." He didn't say anything more than that, and I think it was because of the suspicious sheen I saw in his eyes. My father is a proud man; he is not one who easily shares his emotions.
We never talked about the issue after that, but it still hurts me sometimes when I think about it. Not the abuse, cos I've since moved on from that by the grace of God, but by the tiny rift it created between me and my dad. Okay honestly, the abuse still sits in the farthest reaches of my mind a bit; it even helps me rationalize and justify some flaws and aspects of myself I don't like. But, I'm tryna move on from it...I don't even want it in the farthest reaches of my mind anymore. I want to be a clean slate, I want to let go completely.
There, I just shared a little bit more of myself...maybe when I truly share the rest I'll let go. Who knows? We'll see.
Nodi nu ofuma.
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