Susan Hwang

I was born with a talent for discerning what is wrong about a situation.  This talent did not come into full expression until I was in my thirties.   Now it’s a raging force in my daily existence akin to the Niagara Falls or the Pacific Ocean. Okay, maybe not exactly, but almost.  It’s funny how I could grow up not recognizing this amazing, obvious, huge talent for razor-precision negativity that is so glaringly apparent today. 

When I was a kid, like 6 or 7 years old, I remember sitting on the floor with my mother.  It was after dinner, and I was done massaging her.  I was taught from a young age to walk on my parents’ legs and pound their sore muscles with my little fists.  It was not my favorite thing to do.  I was still a kid and would rather play with my barbies or watch TV, but if my parents wanted it, I would oblige…  It meant I got to spend time with them at least.  This time after massaging my mother, she complained about having to go into work.  She didn’t want to go back to the pharmacy the next day.  It was too tiring.  She was on her feet all day.  She didn’t want to go.  It was heartbreaking to me that my mother should be so tired.  I didn’t know why she had to do something that would wear her out.  I didn’t understand why she should have to do something she didn’t want to do.  This is my earliest memory of wanting desperately to change something.  I wanted her just not to have to go there.  I could feel how much she dreaded it.  I wanted to erase that thing that was causing her dread.  I asked if I could write her a note.  I would write her a note to give to her boss to excuse her from work that day.  I would write her a note that said, “Dear Mr. McNair, My mom is tired today and needs to stay home.  Thank you.  Sincerely, Susan.” 

Against my wishes and hers, my mother went to work the next day.

My mother has finally cut back her hours, but only 33 years after that night on the living room floor.  I like things to happen faster than that.  I continue to want change, yearn for it–for myself and for others.  I want my friends to get over their ex-boyfriends and their ex-boyfriends’ oppressive immigrant families with their Old World judgments.  I want them to immediately recognize their own worth and not give any weight at all to their ex-boyfriend’s immigrant family’s superficial standards and cultural commitment to suffering.  I’d like for my other friend to instantly have the apartment of her dreams with a room of her own and a romance to boot.  I want things for me too.  Sure, lots of things, but mostly the ability to let myself have work that doesn’t feel like punishment.  I seem to torture myself with forcing myself into worlds that I despise but will pay me to do the most boring things imaginable.  I’m serious—if I don’t look like I’m not having fun at all times, they know something is wrong and immediately dock my pay.  I have to quick, open up a spreadsheet and look like I’m dying so as to escape unwanted attention.  I’d much rather swim with dolphins.

I keep looking at the people here and thinking, you guys, you know we could all be swimming with dolphins; what is wrong with us?  Apparently, I haven’t changed that much since I was a little kid.  I still fundamentally don’t understand why we have to do anything we don’t want to do.

People act like they’re stressed out here, but I don’t understand it, because it’s not like they’re writing a new song or anything…

I just read the most interesting post on the brainpickings.org site that was all about optimism.  The most encouraging fact was there.  It seems that people have the most optimism in their teenage years, and that this level declines until mid-life, after which optimism increases again through to old age.  The bottom of optimism is different in women and men.  For women, it’s about 38.6.  For men, around 53.  38.6 for women!!  That means I’m at or past my bottom right now!  That explains everything!  It’s sort of like reaching Christmas or the winter solstice.  It’s only better and better (only more and more light) from here on out.  I’ve reached the lowest low, the darkest dark.  Hallelujah. 

I’m feeling very optimistic about being more optimistic.  I think that I can see this trend of increased optimism in my mother.  Granted, when she was around 40, I was a teenager, so of course she was in rage and despair, but these days, she seems to have a cheerful kind of denial, and I often find myself marveling at how skilled she is at being happy.  I mean, she’s still my mom, and I got my ability to pinpoint what is wrong in any given situation from her, so she still complains about the way kids wear their hair or how slow they walk or how bad someone’s parking is or how overprotective parents are today.  But then she also finds great pleasure in being in her home.  She finally got the windows she’s been dreaming of for 25 years.  She loves the flowers she sees when she’s out on field service, and she emails me pictures of them that she takes on her ipod touch.  I couldn’t find any of those, but here’s something she sent that she titled, “My lonely orchid.”  She said, “It loves son in my little room.”
 

She sent me another titled “Mom on top of the rock.”

And here’s one she sent me of her special rice because she knows it’s my favorite.

From 33 years of talking to strangers about Jehovah, my mom has the remarkable ability to start conversation and relate to anybody.  She is not shy.  She does not have self esteem issues.  She does not seem to be unhappy.  I love that about her.  I aspire to that myself.

Okay, I mean, she does sincerely believe in Armageddon and a literal Satan, and she once told me the nightmares I was having meant that I was obviously possessed by demons.  But I believe weird things too, like that maybe in a past life I was a monk who took an oath of poverty and boredom that still affects me to this day.  So despite the fact that I don’t agree with my mother’s religious beliefs at all, I can see she has really honed her skills of being happy, and I’m very impressed with that.  It makes me optimistic.