She was only needing someone, to hear her VENT, she doesn’t need advice, and you’d, finally, figured it out, after so many years, translated…
A little over a decade ago, a few of us who were married had a get-together, and our conversation topics of our younger schooling years were traded in for work, parent-child relations, and mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships. Everybody shared her experiences, and gotten some wisdoms from each other’s experiences in life.
Hsia was the eldest daughter of her family, her father is a retired serviceman, her mother works at a factory as an operator, and the household economics landed on her after she’d graduated out of community college. Perhaps it’s how she’d needed to be independent earlier on, Hsia quickly adapted herself as the sole provider of her household. Even as she was married, her family of origin still needed her help financially. Although she felt uneven, but there was, nothing she could do about it.
During our gathering, as Hsia mentioned her mother-in-law, her pitch raised. A long time after she married, she still couldn’t manage the difficulties between her mother-in-law and her, and everything in how they’d related to one another was placed under a microscope and examined closely, how everything her mother-in-law had done, was completely, unacceptable in her beliefs. She really got into it, she became more and more worked up as she’d told of the bad actions of her mother-in-law, and perhaps, I got too into her stories, I’d started, blaming her mother-in-law for the trials that she’d weathered through too. After I’d lost my senses, I’d thought, that my classmate was being picked on, I was only, ranting beside her, that was, living up to being her best friend. But Shu-Feng sitting next by reminded me, “You’re, too worked up!”, that was when I’d, started, controlling my own behaviors.
This scene had imprinted into my heart for a long time, and, it’d, accompanied beside me as I rolled around in the world, and I’d come to my senses, on how stupid I was back then. Getting along with the mothers-in-law is a mastery lesson, some people learned their whole lives, and still couldn’t quite manage; and as I’d only heard Hsia’s side of the story, I’d made up my mind that she had an “awful mother-in-law”, and gotten worked up alongside her, and criticized her mother-in-law too. And up to this day, I’d still regretted how brute I was back then, along with how little I’d known.
It’s been years since was last saw one another, we’d found the opportunity to have our heart-to-heart, her children are in middle school and in college, and even went to Korea to study the language. The family was getting along very well, living stably, that, was what I’d gathered, from her facial expressions this time.
I can’t help, but recalled my own craziness back in the day again. And this time, I’d decided, NOT to inquire about how her mother-in-law and she’d been getting along, it seemed, that Shu-Feng was right, kicking me under the tables back then, perhaps, Hsia, who was very emotional back then, only needed someone, to hear her out, and she doesn’t need anybody else’s advice, nor someone who added on to how she was feeling back then.
I’d learned, a valuable lesson, and I truly hope, that Hsia is happy in her life.
So, this just shows, how easily it is, to rush to judgment, on someone you never even met, the narrator doesn’t know the mother-in-law of her friend personally, and yet, as her friend ranted on how bad her mother-in-law treated her, she’d rushed in, and joined in the ranting, and maybe, in her belief, she’s helping her best friend vent, but, this sort of venting in counterproductive, besides, her best friend only needed someone to lend her an ear, to pour out the TRASH, nothing more.