I don’t want to elaborate on what events lead me to write this, because it’s kinda sad, but I seem to be surprised more and more at how little my mother knows me. Maybe my dad doesn’t know me well, either, but he doesn’t go around claiming that I would do x and y, when I would never do x or y and my staff and my friends know it without batting an eye. One of the peeves I have is people claiming they know me when they don’t, or claiming I’m like this, or I’d do this, and they’re totally off-base. I think if people are pompous enough to predict my reactions to things, they’d better be right. I don’t think I’d mind as much if people hypothesize nice things, but my grandma, for example, used to act all shocked when I’d eat tofu, and say things like, “She eats tofu? She knows what tofu is? That’s pretty good! She’s still Asian enough to be willing to eat tofu!” when anyone who knows me at all knows that if the US banned soy products, I’d have to move back to Asia. (No, actually, I wouldn’t, but I’d keep bitching about it.) And I am not THAT white-washed that I’ve turned my back to all things Asian. She almost passed out when I read a simple thing in Chinese once.

And yet there’s the part of me that wonders whether my mom being so off-base with me is actually my fault, because I’m not there as much as I should be, or I don’t share with my parents all the things in my life for them to understand how I am. But I feel that no matter how much I share, she will always still see me a certain way, and the image she has is offensive to me.

Actually, it surprises me that the two people who really should know me the best really don’t know me, and they expect very bad things from me, and are shocked when they don’t receive it. That both hurts and angers me. In a microcosmic analogy, it’s as if I’m walking with someone who’s supposed to really know me, and we walk by a homeless vet on the street, I give him a couple of dollars, and the person I’m with turns and gasps, wide-eyed, and exclaims, “Oh my GOD! You gave him money! That’s so kind of you! I didn’t know you’d have that kind of generosity in you! That’s is SO unlike you!” when my two regular charities (and this is true) is Los Angeles Mission, a homeless shelter that gets people back on their feet, and DAV, Disabled American Veterans.

I think I’m more apt to just wave off the mom thing and categorize it as a lost cause.