House

It was once a very nice place. We have a very windy backyard, grass, bamboo trees, clutter free, clean and neat. People who visit are appreciative of the house design and how it is ventilated, open and breezy that you normally cannot achieve in the city.

Sadly, no one is maintaining it. It is not my house. I dont own it, I am told. I dont really lift a finger to fix most things. I just try to keep the inside neat but stay an arm’s length away from fixing outdoors. It is Mum’s house and she has all the authority to stuff all the junk she wants. The maid’s room has a pile of clothes as high as a small person, maybe as tall as Liam. Her Walk-in closet is filled with wrappers, clothes, left over chips etc. Liam’s room is now converted to semi-storage with only about 2sqm of floor to step on. Luggages, hamper, school bags, boxes are stored on top of each other.

We sometimes think that not decluttering or throwing stuff is saving money, because we dont realized the cost of storing junk. The cost of keeping our stuff that we dont need is dust, allergies, pest, rats, mosquitoes etc. We thought we are saving money by keeping things and a waste to throw them away.

I am for making things easy to maintain. It is sort of a mantra. Keep things easy to clean then it will be cleaned. But if things will break your back in fixing, most of the time it will be left untouched. I prefer to make things less or minimalism as they call it. Make the spaces open of clutter and stuff, in that way cleaning it is just in one easy sweep. If heavy boxes are on top of each other, no one will want to lift those and clean it one by one. More likely, it will just left alone gathering dust. Clutter free is also great to look at at, while clutter is stressful and ugly.

But, It is not my house.

Leaving?

Last week, I was given a bit of a leeway that I can leave (finally!). Prior to last week my messages about it was ignored but last week I got about an answer. I can leave but I have to live nearby. I said I like that too but I have to be near QC to fix my Real Property documents.

Leaving and escaping the household is now within reach. Staying though really nice and convenient but it had been very stressful. There were no weekends that we spent it in peace. I cant recall a weekend without cursing, slaming doors, shouting and saying mean things to each other.

It is best to just decouple and rest our brains a bit. The stress can be too much that eventually something, someone will break.

I have a few things that will affected once I leave. one is the dog, the sports we play and most importantly the kid’s studies that I monitor. Leaving is not a good decison but staying is also not.

Carrying this much stress often spillover to the kids. As I mentioned in my last post, tho we love our kids in moments of stress and depression we can not feel care, love, empathy. We cant have two opposing emotions at the same time.

I hope for the best and hopefully things will be better soon.

Opposite Emotions

We can not feel two opposing emotions at the same time. It is either one or the other and hardly anyway around it. If we are stressed, angry, frustrated etc we cant feel empathy, care, love at the same time. As a struggling parent, when I felt so tired and stressed I can’t be loving too, I will snap, shout, rage when I am in this state; though, I care about my kids—I can not be patient when I am in my “red zone”. When this happen I am seen as mean and unfair, I realized the sad side of my outbursts when my anger mellowed down. We need to bring down our hate before we can feel love and vice versa.

In those times that I shouted and raged, It does not mean I hated you guys. It is just that being a human I cant juggle the 2 opposite emotions. Many times, I shouted, punished, said words I should not have said… that I only realized how painful my actions were when the hate dissipates. When things slowed down and I am alone with my thoughts then I realized I should have not acted that way. Sorry.