It has been almost three years -- and still, my good news is not landing a coveted job, or meeting someone new, or or making a leap of progress in my life.
My good news is that my hearing - you know, the one at which I will be interrogated about the authenticity of my tragedy - will be closed to the public.
At the very least - thank God for that.
But I really hate what has happened to my life.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
The Moment I Realized
from the transcript
Detective: There's no, there's no signs of forced entry. Okay. At the house.
Tee: Okay.
Detective: And right now we're not looking for anybody.
Tee: Oh my God!
Detective: Okay. And I want you to hear that from me, from us.
Tee: Oh my God! Where were they stabbed?
Detective: Ah, chest.
Tee: With what?
Detective: A knife. From the kitchen.
Tee: A kitchen knife, like...?
Detective: Uhm no I don't, well something similar to a steak knife I believe.
Tee: Okay.
Detective: We, we believe that we have it. Uhm, like I said we haven't been able to go in.
Tee: Right.
Detective: So we're going off of ah what the firefighters saw when they first went in. 'Cause they went and obviously they, they attempted life saving measures right away.
Tee: Right.
Detective: On, on everyone. So like I said we won't know specifics until we get in there ourselves and fingerprints, DNA ah all that has to be worked out.
Tee: I want to, I want to ask you a question and I know you really can't answer because you can't speculate or anything but...
Detective: Yeah.
Tee: ...can I ask just as another person?
Detective: Mmhmm.
Tee: Do you think my dad did this?
Detective: There's no, there's no signs of forced entry. Okay. At the house.
Tee: Okay.
Detective: And right now we're not looking for anybody.
Tee: Oh my God!
Detective: Okay. And I want you to hear that from me, from us.
Tee: Oh my God! Where were they stabbed?
Detective: Ah, chest.
Tee: With what?
Detective: A knife. From the kitchen.
Tee: A kitchen knife, like...?
Detective: Uhm no I don't, well something similar to a steak knife I believe.
Tee: Okay.
Detective: We, we believe that we have it. Uhm, like I said we haven't been able to go in.
Tee: Right.
Detective: So we're going off of ah what the firefighters saw when they first went in. 'Cause they went and obviously they, they attempted life saving measures right away.
Tee: Right.
Detective: On, on everyone. So like I said we won't know specifics until we get in there ourselves and fingerprints, DNA ah all that has to be worked out.
Tee: I want to, I want to ask you a question and I know you really can't answer because you can't speculate or anything but...
Detective: Yeah.
Tee: ...can I ask just as another person?
Detective: Mmhmm.
Tee: Do you think my dad did this?
Friday, July 29, 2011
Different wavelength
I'm leaving the country soon, and the other weekend I met with the women from my support group to say goodbye. It's so strange now. We have so much light, but there was a point where we had nothing but darkness, and they are among the few people who can understand the darkness still in me. Even though I'll be able to stay in touch with them through e-mail, losing them scares me. I have so many dark memories that most people just can't relate to:
Detectives pulling me into the dean's office. The picture that went online of my dad on a gurney before I even knew they were dead. Photographers hiding in the bushes. Strangers slandering my family. Signing the cremation order for three of my family members. My first visit to the house to see my life drowned in soot. Sleeping on a deflating cot by the kitchen. My mother's blood stain in her bedroom. The outline of my brother's body in his own blood. My dad's bloody hand-print on the lid of a box of my baby clothes. The autopsy photo of the coroner pulling apart my brother's buttocks to see if my dad had raped him. All of the autopsy photos: naked bodies, open eyes, ribcages cut out, brains removed. There's nothing like seeing your mommy naked, eyes and mouth wide, cut open on a sterile table surrounded by strangers.
The flood of e-mails from people I barely knew. The lack of e-mails from people I cared about. The incessant news stories.
The loss of my survival instinct. I was a zombie for a long time. I felt nothing. No happiness, no sadness, no pain, no turmoil - just numbness. I remember how mechanical my movements were, my smiles. It was awkward to smile, like I had just learned how.
A friend of mine went through a bad break-up this year, and she chooses me as a confidant. I recognize in her many of the stages of grief that I went through, but the nature of her trauma makes me feel extremely isolated. I try to tell myself that I should be able to relate to her stages of grief - and in a way, I do. But I feel like an alien around her. She told me that part of what makes her feel so alone is that he's still around, but she can't be close to him. Logically I understand, and I try to empathize. But it's very hard to connect with someone whose trauma is your secret wish. To know that my mom, dad and brother were somewhere still alive, and that I just couldn't be close to them, would bring me so much intense relief.
I find myself becoming closer and closer to a friend of mine whose father died of cancer when she was a teenager. I've always loved her, but it seems like now we operate on the same wavelength. With nearly everyone else - I truly feel like a different species.
Last night I was talking about my move to the UK, and about how I want to invest in an open-ended return ticket so I can come home on a moment's notice, even if I've run out of funds. Everyone I was with started to joke: "haha yeah, you'll be calling your parents: mom, dad, please buy me a ticket home!".
No, actually. I won't. I have to do this on my own.
Why can't there be more people who understand the darkness and emptiness that I feel? And why do those of us who do have to feel so attacked and stigmatized by everyone else, so that we feel we shouldn't talk about our traumas?
I'm terrified that, once overseas, I won't be able to find someone that I can confide in about every terrifying little detail of what I feel, without judgement or fear. I'm terrified that I'm going to once again feel completely alone.
Detectives pulling me into the dean's office. The picture that went online of my dad on a gurney before I even knew they were dead. Photographers hiding in the bushes. Strangers slandering my family. Signing the cremation order for three of my family members. My first visit to the house to see my life drowned in soot. Sleeping on a deflating cot by the kitchen. My mother's blood stain in her bedroom. The outline of my brother's body in his own blood. My dad's bloody hand-print on the lid of a box of my baby clothes. The autopsy photo of the coroner pulling apart my brother's buttocks to see if my dad had raped him. All of the autopsy photos: naked bodies, open eyes, ribcages cut out, brains removed. There's nothing like seeing your mommy naked, eyes and mouth wide, cut open on a sterile table surrounded by strangers.
The flood of e-mails from people I barely knew. The lack of e-mails from people I cared about. The incessant news stories.
The loss of my survival instinct. I was a zombie for a long time. I felt nothing. No happiness, no sadness, no pain, no turmoil - just numbness. I remember how mechanical my movements were, my smiles. It was awkward to smile, like I had just learned how.
A friend of mine went through a bad break-up this year, and she chooses me as a confidant. I recognize in her many of the stages of grief that I went through, but the nature of her trauma makes me feel extremely isolated. I try to tell myself that I should be able to relate to her stages of grief - and in a way, I do. But I feel like an alien around her. She told me that part of what makes her feel so alone is that he's still around, but she can't be close to him. Logically I understand, and I try to empathize. But it's very hard to connect with someone whose trauma is your secret wish. To know that my mom, dad and brother were somewhere still alive, and that I just couldn't be close to them, would bring me so much intense relief.
I find myself becoming closer and closer to a friend of mine whose father died of cancer when she was a teenager. I've always loved her, but it seems like now we operate on the same wavelength. With nearly everyone else - I truly feel like a different species.
Last night I was talking about my move to the UK, and about how I want to invest in an open-ended return ticket so I can come home on a moment's notice, even if I've run out of funds. Everyone I was with started to joke: "haha yeah, you'll be calling your parents: mom, dad, please buy me a ticket home!".
No, actually. I won't. I have to do this on my own.
Why can't there be more people who understand the darkness and emptiness that I feel? And why do those of us who do have to feel so attacked and stigmatized by everyone else, so that we feel we shouldn't talk about our traumas?
I'm terrified that, once overseas, I won't be able to find someone that I can confide in about every terrifying little detail of what I feel, without judgement or fear. I'm terrified that I'm going to once again feel completely alone.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Proud Parents
A friend of mine graduated this week, and I joined her after the ceremony to take pictures and congratulate her. She and her very proud parents were all smiles - it was a really beautiful sight. I was so proud of her myself; I really got caught up in the moment, and reveled in all of the joy.
Being there, I started to wonder why I hadn't invited all of my friends to join me on the grass for pictures as per my university's tradition. It seemed so joyous. Standing there with her, I somehow didn't understand how my own convocation could be tainted with any emotion other than joy or pride.
Then when things wrapped up, I walked home. Alone. To an empty apartment. And thank God I had sunglasses, because I cried the whole damn way.
As soon as I walked away, the images of my grad had shifted from friends like dear M***** congratulating me on the grass to images of my parents hugging me and smiling at me like hers were on that day. Images that are no more than fiction for me. Empty hopes.
It's not fair. Mommy, Daddy: you wanted me to graduate, just like you? You both had your parents with you. I don't.
And I don't know how I can be proud of myself without you there to show me.
Being there, I started to wonder why I hadn't invited all of my friends to join me on the grass for pictures as per my university's tradition. It seemed so joyous. Standing there with her, I somehow didn't understand how my own convocation could be tainted with any emotion other than joy or pride.
Then when things wrapped up, I walked home. Alone. To an empty apartment. And thank God I had sunglasses, because I cried the whole damn way.
As soon as I walked away, the images of my grad had shifted from friends like dear M***** congratulating me on the grass to images of my parents hugging me and smiling at me like hers were on that day. Images that are no more than fiction for me. Empty hopes.
It's not fair. Mommy, Daddy: you wanted me to graduate, just like you? You both had your parents with you. I don't.
And I don't know how I can be proud of myself without you there to show me.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Looming Convocation
I am trying so hard to be proud of myself, and to celebrate my accomplishments.
But I keep failing to understand what exactly I should celebrate when in these last four years I've lost so much more than I've gained.
I had a year and a half of the "undergraduate experience," and the rest of the time was spent in mourning. I resent that so much. I resent this institution for being the place I found out they died. I resent my peers for achieving the same degree as me under far more favourable circumstances. I resent my registar for sending me congratulatory e-mails. I resent the fact that I'm graduating with a GPA .01 away from high distinction - in other words, if life hadn't decided to kick me in the proverbial balls, I would probably have a 4.0 with a ton of extracurriculars to put on my resume.
I think what hurts the most is that, when I get up on that stage, only two people in that room will know what I struggled through to get there. Only two.
But I keep failing to understand what exactly I should celebrate when in these last four years I've lost so much more than I've gained.
I had a year and a half of the "undergraduate experience," and the rest of the time was spent in mourning. I resent that so much. I resent this institution for being the place I found out they died. I resent my peers for achieving the same degree as me under far more favourable circumstances. I resent my registar for sending me congratulatory e-mails. I resent the fact that I'm graduating with a GPA .01 away from high distinction - in other words, if life hadn't decided to kick me in the proverbial balls, I would probably have a 4.0 with a ton of extracurriculars to put on my resume.
I think what hurts the most is that, when I get up on that stage, only two people in that room will know what I struggled through to get there. Only two.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
90
I got a final grade of 90 on my undergraduate thesis. I was so anxious before seeing the grade, and then there it was, and I started crying. I'm not happy. I'm not proud. The mark means nothing to me. I don't care. For once all of my stress, hard work and dedication paid off, and now I get two pen-strokes on a piece of paper. Whoop-de-fuckin-do. I got a 90. Et alors? All of the stress probably cut off a full year from my life expectancy - yeah, that was definitely worth it.
I'm so angry.
I'm so angry that the education that I made so many sacrifices for no longer means anything to me.
I realized a long time ago that (if anything) a college education would have been better suited to me than this, but my parents wanted us to have university degrees and I wanted to fulfill that wish. Now I'm in way too much debt with nothing to show for it. (On that note, there's an organization that compensates people whose lives have suffered from violent crimes. But, apparently, my own experience couldn't have significantly affected me and there's no way I could have experienced shock, so I don't qualify. Fuck you.)
I could have been gaining experiences in these past four years. I could have been building my resume (which currently is an empty piece of crap). I could have been taking time to properly mourn my family. Hell, I could have been at home with them in their last years.
The things I gained and learned from university were not academic, and I feel as though there are cheaper and more fulfilling ways to gain the same education.
Whatever.
Keep your damn 90. Or let me trade it for a hug from my mom.
It's not like a decent transcript is a ticket to good karma.
I'm so angry.
I'm so angry.
I'm so angry that the education that I made so many sacrifices for no longer means anything to me.
I realized a long time ago that (if anything) a college education would have been better suited to me than this, but my parents wanted us to have university degrees and I wanted to fulfill that wish. Now I'm in way too much debt with nothing to show for it. (On that note, there's an organization that compensates people whose lives have suffered from violent crimes. But, apparently, my own experience couldn't have significantly affected me and there's no way I could have experienced shock, so I don't qualify. Fuck you.)
I could have been gaining experiences in these past four years. I could have been building my resume (which currently is an empty piece of crap). I could have been taking time to properly mourn my family. Hell, I could have been at home with them in their last years.
The things I gained and learned from university were not academic, and I feel as though there are cheaper and more fulfilling ways to gain the same education.
Whatever.
Keep your damn 90. Or let me trade it for a hug from my mom.
It's not like a decent transcript is a ticket to good karma.
I'm so angry.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
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