the absent perks of being a parent

i do not think there has been enough sadness to drive my writing in this world,

but occasionally there is. there is no other greater force, and it's not like i enjoy being sad, or i would like to be sad, or i take comfort in being sad (although sometimes i do admit to have indulged in the familiar comfort of the company of soaked pillowcases, and in the the comfort of the company of a spring mattress that has reshaped itself, has been pushed to its bottom because someone's been trying to bury herself forever there), but this kind of emotion has been blessed with a prosperous flow of things and thoughts that ring the innate alarm, which begs to be called off, or written down, or pinned down immediately like no other emotion will ever come with. perhaps it's the urgency, perhaps it's the hunger too. perhaps there is something else in sadness that cannot be deciphered unless i take the initiative to first lie everything down and clear first.

i have been having disturbing dreams lately, which i refuse with all sincerity to call them nightmare. you call the dreams of ghosts, of walking slippers, of dark rainbows nightmare but my dreams are none of those. they do not try to scare me away, to wake me up in the middle of a hectic absence of light; they just try to project their version of reality. warn me of an imminent tsunami of problems that attend temporary solutions convoluting the existing problems that reject my effort to diminish their existence. perhaps my subconscious is being kind or perhaps it just gets a little afraid it feels like, it has a hunch that for things to get better it could not cut me some slack anymore even for a second. it might have been trying to tell me that my guard has to be up whenever a rose still smells fragrant even under a different name, how it still would have always been had it decided to dislike and disrobe its name.

today i took a nap, except that it was almost evening not afternoon and the weather was perfect although i still closed my windows tight. i woke up not wanting to do anything but either write or shed some tears, which would have been difficult had i tried to combine them together. so i chose to be realistic by telling my tears patiently that my eyes might not be the best place to inhabit but it would be best if they choose to roll back to their dwelling i provide up here, because otherwise my vision would be blurred, my laptop keypad stained and i could not write. so i stopped crying and i walked down the stairways and asked my father whether my shoes package has arrived. my steps were clear and light enough but i could never see myself beyond those because i was not wearing my contact lenses and could not see my reflection on the mirror.

and my dad asked me whether i have been crying,
and he asked me whether it was my mother,
and i told him that i have not, and i told him that it was not,
and he told me, "you look sad."
and i said, "ok." and made my way up to my bedroom.

a few minutes later

my mother swung my door open without knocking on it like always, as if claiming a little of my space, as if disclaiming my privacy, as if saying that a child's privacy has never existed even before the age of silence and should never do even after the age of glass.

and then she asked about my brother's comic books that were lying on the wooden floor. they were in japanese.

"does he even understand this," said her.

i shrugged my shoulders as i finished the first few paragraphs of this writing.

"you didn't come to school today?"

i told her that i have an exam tomorrow so i would like to study.

"why did you cry?"

and she began to make a list of things that might have made me cry and utter them to me. me? boy? school? stress? i almost shattered by then, and my head shook with the world. mom, i can't tell you now because i have a test tomorrow. she pressed me for an answer casually but my eyes never really left the computer screen. she does not understand english, and is currently taking a basic course. finally she retreated back to her bedroom.

after waking up a few thoughts gathered in my head, gravitating towards my brain like children flocking a santa claus in flame red suit.

and i am trying to catch the remaining here:

1) i do not want to have a child or children.
2) to think that i am capable of raising a child or children is beyond naive, or foolish, and stupid. and i will try to not think of it again.
3) when i violate the first point i will give myself a permission to slay my head, and no one a permission to witness the blood sputtering from the bulging veins on my neck. (i initially suggested that perhaps i should just call myself 'crazy', but everybody is nowadays. 'crazy' is the new 'moral'.)

because to raise a child or children, you need a flair beyond all humane capabilities. and i think i do not have one. i used to think i did. it was a bad thought. and amongst all the endless qualities required to parent a kid/kids, the obvious and the not obvious ones, here are some:

patience
and tolerance.

what makes you think that you can handle your future kids' lying, a possible sign of disloyalty, if you always vomit an unsurmountable amount of complaints whenever you friends or your lover cheat on you? or lie a little about whom they are actually having their lunch with. well, maybe you can get used to that. be immune to your kid's lies. you tolerate them. but how much? how much would you deem tolerable? too little means giving restricted freedom, too much means a possibility that they would detach themselves from you, and another array of possibilities with no dead end.

what makes you think that you could make a better parent than your parents now are?
(we really like to think that we are more important, more capable than we really are. i think.)
what makes you think that your kids will grow up understandably, better in some aspects you hope them to be, good at things that we have not been?
what makes you think they will not have a hard time liking their parents? what convinces you that they will learn? they will accept?

it takes not just understanding, kindness, flexibility, open-mindedness to raise a child. sure, i've seen successful parents. but they have something that i don't.

well.

i do hope that i will learn more and change my perspective one day. just like how i refused to see myself as a mother when i learnt that my mom washed my butt after i defecated back in my childhood days before i thought that perhaps it would not be so bad. i wash mine everyday, and why can't i see my kid as a little part of me? but it's easier than having a kid who thinks that s/he is a part of you.

through this i can imagine our civilization coming to an end, with everyone having bad dreams and having their previous desire to raise a kid dwindle. people will use protective measures whenever they make love to their lover even after they get married. aside from career, humans will have more reasons as to why they do not want to have children (see we need to talk about kevin). oh, it's okay, we will not go extinct because every other person on earth will think of having one or two, they would say. but everybody would say the same thing and what they refer to as everybody, is eventually nobody in the end.

do you get me? do you? tell me that you do even when you don't. my kid will spend his/her miserable life trying to find someone who retorts a firm yes to this question, and will finally pretend that there is at least two, which is his/herself and his/her lover, when there really is no one who could really understand; because it is easier that way. because when someone says yes, i do at the wedding altar my kid will assume that it also means, yes, i do get you.

but sometimes what eunice said is true, that
i do want to have kids with you.
maybe not now. maybe later. but not never.
it's crazy. but crazy is the new moral.

maybe this is why our civilization won't end very soon.