Of Pixels and Dying

Chapter 3: Mother Dearest, Part 2

At this point my parents had begun to take notice of how little I was going out to socialize with friends, as well as the lengths of time I was spending on my computer. "I'm doing homework," I'd always lie whenever they questioned my screen time. And they believed it each time, still under the impression that I had nothing but school on my mind.

Except academics were now on the backburner for me. I was turning in my homework on time, but because of my inability to find the drive to study, the marks I was receiving were far from my usual standard. My GPA was slipping with each new assignment getting inputted. I took a peak one day and couldn't believe the number I saw. 3.4? How had it fallen so much in just a couple of months?

I broke down into tears, tugging at the roots of my hair in an attempt to soothe myself as sobs shook my body. 3.4. My grades had never been this low in my life. My parents were going to kill me. I wanted to give up; what was the point in trying when my best efforts were no longer being rewarded like they used to? The one thing I placed all of my personal value in could no longer support my fragile identity.

I sat there, knees drawn up to my chest, and stared blankly at the floor. I wanted to just crawl into bed, bury myself under my covers, and sleep forever. Fuck school, fuck grades, fuck getting in to college. None of it mattered anymore if it made me feel completely worthless to my core.

Eventually I scraped up the energy to open my laptop and continue my virtual adventure in the online world I wished I could be in instead. My Viking character had progressed rapidly and was able to start defeating more powerful enemies. My tear-stained face curved into a smile as two players I had recently befriended congratulated me on reaching level 20. A small, albeit dim, ray of joy pierced my soul. How was it that people I'd never met before, whom I could communicate with only through pixels on my screen, made me feel more appreciated and worthy of my existence than those I was surrounded by in real life?

A sharp knock on my door rudely jostled me out of the peaceful comfort of gaming.

"Kelsey, can you clean up Tubs's litter box?" my mother asked, opening my door to see me hunched over my laptop.

"Can't, in the middle of something," I responded without taking my eyes off the screen.

She huffed annoyedly and left, snapping over her shoulder, "Why can't you just do things when you're supposed to? You're so useless." The door slams shut.

My eyes welled up with tears again. This is what I'm talking about. Here I am, minding my own business and not bothering anybody. Mother dearest could have just asked me nicely to clean the litter box when I had the chance, yet she felt the need to insult me instead. I could be a high school dropout or pregnant at 17, but apparently not doing my chores right on time makes me the worst daughter in history. Tears dripped down onto my keyboard where I was in the middle of typing out a message of thanks to my new online companions.

My mind wanders back to Jainah's comments from the previous week. Was this really how other children of Asian parents were treated? And was I the only one who was "taking it personally," as Jainah had said, and not brushing it off as "tough love"? That couldn't be right.

Even so I felt my mom's words embed themselves into my consciousness and maliciously invade the stream of inner monologue. Useless. Overweight. Lazy. Not smart. And my personal favorite: you're never going to make it as a scientist.

See, I had been passionate about environmental science- specifically climate change research- since I was a child. I had big dreams to Save The World. For some reason though my mother had plenty of doubts about my goal to become a research scientist, despite the fact that I received near-100% marks in all of my science classes and had an entire bookshelf dedicated to my interest.