“Ang sapa basta saba, mabaw”
“Ang sapa basta hilom, lawom.”
In the Bisaya expression, the former is the notion we sought to say for ‘nailed promises’ of a politician, to quote those infamous ‘keyboard warriors’ we irk in social media, or to those ‘all talk and no bite’ foe we often encounter in life.
While the latter tells the other side of the coin; a man of few words to say the least, or maybe that one quiet friend in your circle — who knows who? Perhaps, this metaphor also reflects our present circumstances, resonating in the near-at-hand we often confront within ourselves. In line is a forewarning of complexities beyond what we think of.
Like sapa or ‘river’, family dysfunction manifests in both visible and concealed ways; some are messed up that everyone can see the rippling current across the surface, while others are better at hiding it, and unless you’re in the same stream, there’s still riptides that you can’t see.
Sadly, it goes on from one generation to another: grappling with toxic parents and ‘enabler’ relatives while enforcing their demarcated idea of success in what nots that gratify our value to them. They throw rock-hard expectations but it will ruffle their feathers when you begin to rebel from them. Since then, we have been the children who are forced to create our own wealth as we have nowhere to inherit it. Or we have been scions for their deferred dreams.
Yet from time to time, people with these parental figures; they grow to the idea that love and manipulation are coexisting, and that love is the need to understand and solely accept this even if it is inflicting our pain and misery. It is as if we are chained into thinking that we are under obligation to fill up potholes of their life by working to satisfy their expectations without even asking ourselves– was their pursuit really aligned with my genuine desires? Whose life am I really living? And oftentimes, this generational ill causes post-traumatic response, and some are sadly– left unhealed.
But, one thing I learned from our generation, we may be branded as “balat sibuyas”, “entitled”, and “OA”; we learned to recognize and acknowledge trauma, and we are slowly healing ourselves through our own ways.
I have so much hope that we will gradually teach ourselves to be braver so when in difficult conversations, we can learn not to suppress our emotions and realize what harm might their actions bring—even if they are your family. And, one day, we will fully understand that even if they are family, their abusive patterns should not be excused. For a long time, the “family” card has been bruisedly used to get away with anything, but I hope that in this generation this card finally declines.
Be healed so that it won’t even matter if they will or they will not seek your forgiveness—maybe that’s the best kind of potion we can spill for us, and for the coming generations. This chain of generational trauma ends with us. To unsubscribe from their notions. To set free. For you. You owe it to yourself.
Needless to say, may we embrace lessons and gradually learn self-love, offering a potion for personal growth even in our life’s complexities. I too, had so longed for these people and for the times when their child wouldn’t carry such heavy baggage from the places they’ll consider as ‘home’.