I didn’t know you can get shopped out until it happened to me. Gasp! What strange things go on in this world!

I think its coz I’m still sick and on medication that’s making me all drowsy and tired [when I’m not high] though. Otherwise, there’s really nothing strenuous involved other than trying on things in some shops. One nice thing about India, there are always people to wait on you. Well, I guess that’s nice for me, sucky for the guy who needs to wait on me, but as an unwell person I think I have the right to be selfish.

So that’s a nice side effect of illness at home. But the other side of it is that my mom is determined to physick me and its like that Enrique Eglesias song – “You can run, you can hide but you can’t escape my love” [creepiest song ever btw, beats Sting hollow]. It’s driving me crazy. When I finally lost it, of course I felt like a jerk and had to make up for it by being extra nice coz an apology just doesn’t cut it in my house with my parents.

I could have lived with the guilt trip if I was feeling better but they caught me at a vulnerable point so I gave in and let her do what she wanted and of course, it involved a great many things I didn’t like such as porridge [bleh!] and early bed [double bleh!] and so on. And then Daddy got into the act and wanted to be all Papa Bird and kept asking me every two minutes whether I wanted to go to the doctor and in the process completely ruined any chance I had of sleeping and so of course I yelled at him next and then had lie awake half the night, first listening to him grumble about my deteriorating behavior and then unable to rest with the memory of having snapped his head off when he meant to be kind and… in the meantime he was snoring away in his bedroom so that he could get up at six the next morning right when I had entered the REM phase of my hard won sleep and make me the world’s worst coffee as a peace offering.

Sob! When I can leave this place and go far, far away?!

All this bellyaching aside, I’m gonna miss being home when I’m away. I always do. It’s the one last place on the planet where I’m the kid and its wonderful when its not bugging the hell out of me. I remember when Grandma died, Ma was weeping hard and the first thing she said to me when she was able to talk was that, “She was my mom, I don’t have parents any more.”

I felt so sad at that moment. I think most kids feel bad for their parents more than they feel bad for themselves. I know that on the few occasions I have seen my Ma cry or my father depressed, I always felt double worse than I have at any point for myself. That day too when faced Ma’s sadness at the loss of her mother, a woman for whom she’s always had mixed feelings and a desperate need, I just wanted to take her hurt away. There was nothing I could do but hold her hand but I think, upon reflection, I’ve taken the time to be extra nice to her since that day.

We’ve been working towards a more mature relationship [with the compulsory slips] since the day I began to match her in height, but its since my grandma’s death that we’ve begun to address our issues and talk to each other instead of at each other. I’m happy.