Metanoia

2: Catharsis

{Catharsis: /kəˈθɑːsɪs/; the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions//the release of emotional tension, through kinds of arts or music}

"And what do you have to say for yourself, Lin Xi?"

He hated it when his mom stated his name fully. She made it sound like she was spitting something foul. Something that she felt like he was.

"What are these grades? Is this what your father and I are working hard for in this strange land, so far away from our home country?"

Her voice rang through the large room and his head.

"No Mama, the tests were hard and this was the average grade of everyone in my class,"

"So you're going to be happy being average? You think this is how you're going to beat the competition of life and land yourself in a good position? I don't care about the others, these are disrespectful grades,"

Lin's mind had started buzzing dully, something that happened every time she went on a lecture and chewed him out. He was tired of all this. Tired of never being enough.

"Your cousins back home have part time jobs and better grades than you do. Even your best friend, Phyllis, has already started at a company. And here you are, pampered and given everything you want, getting shitty grades,"

She got up, threw the result slip on the floor and stomped off. Lin limply sat down on the couch and closed his eyes. This was not the end of it. He knew that when his dad got home, the verbal abuse was gonna start again, as well as the passive aggressiveness for a week or two. He looked at the paper on the floor and saw the proud B gracing the page. He smiled bitterly and remembered how happy the folks in class looked today with their B's and C's.

Oh how had they pat his shoulders telling him that he should be happier, he should be grateful, those were amazing grades.

His face felt painful and heavy with all the blood that had rushed upwards and he took a deep breath, trying to hold emotions at bay. One would think that after years of this, he would have gotten better at dealing with it. The angst had become his comfort zone and the pain even felt good at times. But he still was not used to the heaviness in his chest.

Maybe if she had let him choose what he had wanted, he would have gotten better grades. Maybe if she stopped complaining about his poor performance and saw how hard he tried to study something he absolutely hated and still made sense of somehow, she would have been happier.

But no, nothing he did was ever enough. His parents tried hard to give him the best life possible and he was the ungrateful little shit who made no efforts to meet up their expectations. He felt his eyes water and his chest constrict. He got up, grabbed the miserable paper off the floor and in long heavy steps, made his way to the only place that brought him solace in this big empty house.

He closed the door as softly as possible and let his eyes roam through his art room, his personal paradise. Buckets of paint were scattered here and there, the floor covered with torn crepe papers, empty sheets, palettes, paintboxes, pastels, acrylic, watercolour and an unholy amount of paintbrushes. Empty and filled canvases stood tall like the respected giants of the kingdom. It was a mess but it was his mess and he knew where exactly where was what. He stepped gingerly from corner to corner. This was the only place his mom didn't enter or clean up.

She absolutely refused to and claimed it was all a waste of space and money, even if she still bought whatever he asked for. He sighed. Asian parents had no regard for you unless you were passionate about being a doctor or an engineer or a teacher. And if you weren't, they chose one for you. At least she hadn't insisted on him being a doctor instead of engineer. The very thought gave him shivers.