Great Tang Idyll - Chapter 49

Great Tang Idyll Vol. 1 Chapter 049 | adfly

If you wish to hear more updates on my personal life, which also doubles as a rant so I don’t go crazy, feel free to keep scrolling down.

This will mostly be a disorganized mess since I am mostly venting and can’t think straight. I can’t really think of a reason for anyone to be interested but it probably helps to explain why though I am trying to resume translation, my output might still not be so consistent. Because of the craziness. Also, it is also directly responsible for this chapter being up later today than it should have been since I kept being interrupted while I was editing… >:[

I am currently not living with my friend anymore and crashing in the living room of the relative (A) who offered me a place to stay. The relative (B) who found me an inconvenience and is the one with actual ownership has mostly stayed to themselves though they will sometimes randomly snap at me (no, wait, they just came over to yell at me and how I’ve let my life come to this so maybe it took them longer to lose their temper about the perceived unfairness of this whole situation and all of their existing issues—it was ridiculous so it would make for another enormous essay so I won’t really go into it right now). However, it turns out relative (A) is probably not going to back up any of the help or support they initially promised. So I am now dealing with the repercussions of that, of which there are numerous.

There is a distinct lack of privacy, which I had been prepared for going in, because relative (A) is mostly active in the living room area where I am crashing. Thus, while I’m working, I have to deal with constant interruptions because relative (A) has decided that I need to be managed and coached by their superior intelligence and experience. So I’m at the limits of my patience in terms of the amount of interruptions when I am working to listen to not so helpful lectures and condescending advice. It’s a bit of an emotional blackmail dynamic at this point where they feel superior for offering to help me when I needed it but at the same time, they think it gives them the right to judge and criticize me. I am one to take advice and all but it’s not really helpful to be told stuff like you’re fat, socially inept, just loafing around, and not motivated to succeed while you’re trying to get back on your feet and working on being independent. It’s kinda hard to accomplish this goal when I’m constantly getting interfered with. Although since I earn money by doing freelance work online, it does look like I am goofing off at the computer when I am not.

I also get the sense that relative (A) has a control complex and wants me to follow everything they say and gets upset if I don’t, taking it as disrespect. However, they also have absurd requests or tend to start arguments with me over ridiculously petty things (once it was about the water pitcher when I forgot to refill it once but they started a fight over something completely unrelated before getting to the point) instead of simply making civil attempts at communication but they aren’t straightforward about it and force me to have to play a guessing game to figure out what they’re really mad about. They also deem themselves an expert on mental illnesses when they are not so I also have to deal with their pop psychology advice. It’s rather obnoxious to deal with someone who fancies themselves a psychologist but has no sympathy or talent for it and is only interested in the area because of the ego boost it brings them. It doesn’t help that I have mostly recovered from the worst of my last breakdown, which my friend had helped out with (note that it took YEARS for to get to this point of recovery), so it only exacerbates relative (A)’s mistaken impression that either I only have a mild case of whatever it is I have or that mental issues are just sooo easy to resolve if you just try hard enough!

Also, relative (A) is now attaching a lot more strings to the help they initially offered to me, which they had made out to be “I will give you any and all the support I can to get you back on your feet.” So it’s a bit of an adjustment to realize that when they say unconditional support, it’s really not. Or at least, there was a very short expiration date on the offer and it had not been made clear that there’d be a gradual creep of abusive/unhealthy behavior starting after the first night of my arrival. I had been prepared for a certain bit of exaggeration but I hadn’t been prepared for how little he would actually follow through on the promise. Also, I didn’t realize how much emotional abuse it would entail, even if they are not aware of what they are doing and think their good intentions justify their bad behavior. It doesn’t help that relative (A) is already floating the idea of charging me rent when I am literally crashing in the living room and it’s only been about a week or so since I’ve arrived (plus, he is proposing an equal 3-way split when I don’t actually have a full 3-way share of the place or any of the typical rights to the place like fridge or pantry space so my food budget has also increased because I’m forced to eat out a lot). That and it is also annoying how hypocritical they are in criticizing my insomnia/night owl tendencies but they also have irregular sleeping schedules, which now affects mine since they turn on the lights in the living room area whenever they’re up and are rather noisy (one of the arguments turned out to be that they didn’t want me to sleep late because that means I wake up later and they then have to be considerate of the fact that I am sleeping when they are up and about—this would be a fair request if they didn’t also go to sleep later than I do, keeping me up with the noise of their activities, but also happen to wake up earlier than I do even if I don’t sleep a full 7-8 hours because they make up for any sleep they miss from not sleeping a full night with an afternoon nap, which is not a luxury I have).

It doesn’t help that both my relatives are not good listeners so though I tell them something repeatedly and with great detail, they only either hear what they want or only retain part of it to fill in the blanks with their own assumptions, which they don’t bother to ask me to correct this negative impression of me that they’ve created all by themselves so I am left unaware of what is brewing in their minds until they decide to create more upheaval and stress for me by randomly starting an argument about it.

I am grateful to have a place to stay, which is mostly thanks to relative (A). It is just that it comes part and parcel with a lot of other factors that questionably create just as many issues as having a roof over my head solves.

So needless to say, I am currently looking for another place to stay. Of course, this is made difficult by the fact that because I believed relative (A)’s offer of help, I moved out of state and across the country to crash on their couch, which also happens to be in one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in (Of course, the benefit is though where I was living had lower costs of living, it was very remote and pedestrian-unfriendly). My circumstances not only mean my choices are limited by my current budget but also require me to be picky as well since I need a degree of stability, security, and privacy as well as convenient access to public transportation because I don’t have a car. So yeah, just trying to deal with this sudden and unexpected emotional rollercoaster when I had been used to relative peace and quiet (which was really useful for my recovery). Anyway, this is a bit of a bummer to write but trying to not let it get me down. Any ideas or suggestions are welcome since I don’t know much about what options are available in the city I’m currently in…

Anyway, end rant. I find it easier to let go of negativity once I vent and I will be able to confront my relatives with a better mental perspective. Here’s hoping things will improve or a better solution comes up…