This is the story of displaying my country's flag for our independence day. It takes effort but makes me patriotic. I get injured (If there's blood, it's an injury). There's also the tale of my boring Friday nights, my bed trying to break up with me, lots of drama and my mom realizing her daughter is nuts. Welcome to my life!
31st August, is my country's Independence Day.
In celebration of our Independence Day, every year, without fail, my mom will put up our country's flag, for the entire month of the national day celebration, till 16th September. The entire nation is encouraged to do so to show our love for our country.
So my mom has been telling me for weeks that she hasn't yet put up our flag this year. Not hinting. My mom doesn't do hints. It's straight out, "it's a few more days to 31st August, the flag is not up yet!"
But when you come home from work, exhausted, thinking of the workout you have to do, before you can bathe and have your dinner, while waiting to just fall on your bed and sleep, did not really get me all excited about putting up the flag.
I would like to imagine I look this pretty falling down on my bed in exhaustion.
But in reality, I look like this.
Ok. That's an exaggeration because honestly even this whale looks cute doing its back flip thing.
Sometimes I do feel sorry for my bed. The suffering it has to endure, having to put up with my body on it, day after day... Pretty sure my bed screams in agony when I approach it.... I have this gut feeling that my bed and my weighing scale are conspiring to leave me and run away together.
Can I really blame them... Who would want me on top of them...
I feel you, really I do...
No, bed. Don't leave me. I'm sorry for the pain my body puts you through. What you have to handle every night... and sometimes in the afternoon during weekends, when I feel like a nap.
I know it's a hard life, I'm sorry. I wish I was lighter and sexier, so you could at least enjoy having me sprawled on top of you.
I'm working on it, ok... Just hang in there...
Wait!!!! Are you breaking up with me???
Yeah.. I'm a little weird, Steve Harvey.. But I'm cute, right?
Anywayyyyyyyyy
Friday comes around.
Yeah, my Friday night fun is usually just me enjoying my hot date with Netflix.
My mom feels so sorry for me and my lack of a social life or just lack of a life in general, that she tries to get me to live a little, by reminding me that there's alcohol in the fridge, left behind by my alcohol supplier, my kid brother.
Ok.. Maybe he's not a kid anymore. But although he may be married and almost 30, but being 12-years younger than me, he will always remain my kid brother.
And, when you used to change your brother's diapers when he was a baby, and babysat him when he was young, it's only fair that when he grows up, he returns the favor, by becoming your alcohol supplier and cocktail mixing person.
But drinking alone is no fun. So I tell my mom, "No. Thank you. I'm on a diet."
"Hahaha. Diet, you say", laughs the bag of chips in my hand.
Shut up, bag of chips. Nobody asked you!
Yeah. I always seem to be a little drunk, even without consuming any alcoholic beverages.
Then, Saturday morning comes along. The moment I wake up and crawl out of bed, and stagger drunkenly out of my room, my mom goes, "let's put up the flag today."
I haven't had coffee yet, my eyes are barely open and I haven't done my morning workout, so yes, it was like I was suffering from a really bad hangover, but without the joys of having enjoyed alcohol the night before.
Anyway, being a dutiful daughter, and also because, I'm hungry and I need food, and I'm afraid my mom won't cook for me if I don't do what she asks.
I could cook, but I could also blow up the kitchen. Also, I don't know how to switch on the stove.
I also don't want to say "no" to my mom, because although she can't ground me anymore, or send me to my room, it could be worse, I could lose food privileges. And if you have ever tasted my mom's cooking, you will understand how losing those food privileges, is like... well.. Dean Winchester not getting to eat pie anymore.
Yeah.. It's that scary.
Anyway, while waiting to raise the flag, I maybe swing the flag around a little, while singing my favorite national day song, "Tanggal 31" by the late Sudirman. It's not our national anthem, but his soulful voice and earnest rendition of the song commemorating our independence day, gets me emotional, every time I hear it.
Nooooo Mom.. Nooooo.. I'm not crazy..
Wait.. Are you embarrassed by my out-of-tune singing and me playing with the flag, and the fact that I'm singing.. in public.. in broad daylight.. and the neighbors can see?
Just think of it this way. It could have been worse. I could have been doing it like this guy.
So I'm swinging the flag and singing in my terrible voice, that perhaps had a few frogs going, "welcome to our club, buddy", and a few stray cats choking themselves to death.
Yeahhhhhh The cats in my neighborhood are a tad bit dramatic.
And my mom looks at me, and all my playing with the pole, and out of tune singing, with the “man, is this oldest daughter of mine ever going to grow up” look on her face.
Never mom.. Never.. I will always be the immature oldest kid of yours, who thinks the TV at home is the love of her life, likes to hang out with kids and play with toys and board games, and who watches movies and TV shows that you deem childish.
After I'm done being me, I get into serious mode, or as serious as I wish I could be, and have the flag hoisted. I tell you, to see the flag flying proudly in the wind, does give you a feeling of patriotism.
Getting it up there, though, was definitely tough. Working under the blazing, hot sun, and using fencing wire to hold the pole steady to the gate so the flag can fly high and also making sure that the pole doesn't fall.
It's hard manipulating the wire. It cuts into your hand. And I scream dramatically, "Help me! I'm injured!"
But when you're not 5, you don't get much sympathy, just a "it's barely a cut" from my mom.
Then it strikes me. My mom has been doing this on her own, for years. My brother used to come home and help her. With the Covid situation and travel restrictions, it's a bit difficult for him to travel down, across states, to visit us as often as he used to.
So I'm the one left to help her. When he was away at college, my mom used to hoist the flag up on her own, while I was at work, but this year, she felt she needed help, so she asked me.
So I do it for one year, and I get injured.
Ok... It's just a small cut.
But when there's blood, it's an injury.
No, Derek Hale.
I do not faint.
But it's still a cut..
And it's bleeding.. I may bleed to death you know..
Hey, it happens...
Actually, I think I'm looking a little pale.
Maybe I need a doctor?
It's at times like this that I realize, my mom is a total badass. There's nothing she can't do. She has climbed ladders to clean cobwebs, the dirty windows and the fan. She has painted our house on her own, while we were at school. She has moved furniture around, like really big furniture, like the heavy metal cabinet in our house, on her own, without help, even now, when she's nearing 70.
She has handled her cuts and bruises, without a whimper or a complaint. She has even handled her cancer diagnosis and chemo, with a smile, a joke and a "it's just cancer, people, nothing to worry about, let's get on with life" attitude.
And I realize how lucky I am to have grown up as her daughter.
P.S.
If anyone is wondering why a woman in her 40s, is still living with her mom, just know that it's an Indian thing... No one leaves home, unless you're married, or work in a place that is not in the same town as your parents.
I could have found jobs in our bigger cities, but then my dad passed away, and I could not leave my mom, and let her live alone.
If you're thinking maybe she would like living alone. Nope. Not Indian moms.
My mom now is hoping my married brother, would move back home with his wife, and live with us.
She wants him to move back home so badly... that she has tried to make his room as inviting as possible for him and his wife... Painting the room... Buying small cabinets for their things... New curtains.... Bedding...
Moving boxes of things stored in the room... And where did she move the things out of my brother's room to? Yup. My room....
I come home from work to see boxes and tables in my room... I'm like why!
She says because my brother's room is too crowded with too many things...
So the solution is moving them to my room?
I already hardly have room to do my workouts... I keep knocking into the side of my bed when I do lunges and stuff...
And he stays like one or two nights when he visits... Not a whole month... He can't take so many days off... Sometimes we go stay with him at his place during long weekends and holidays... And you want to keep the room pristine until he visits?
So she takes the things back to his room with a
sad face and grumblings of me being “difficult”... Ok maybe it
wasn't as dramatic as that... and maybe she didn't realize that
moving things into my room was an inconvenience... but all I know is
she sure does love my brother... Granted, we all do...
And if my brother could actually find a good job back in my hometown, he probably would... Because that's what Indian sons do, especially if they're the only sons in the family.
Or maybe it's just my brother, who has it fixed in his mind, that it's his duty to take care of his mom and me, his old spinster of a sister, like rotting on the shelf, single sister...
Doesn't matter if he's 12 years younger than me, he still looks out for me... I guess, it's an Indian Thing.
Or do you think it could be because I'm immature and act like a kid sometimes?
#WhenYouInstinctivelyKnowYourCelebrityCrushIsGoingToThinkYou'reWeird
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