Was very moody over dinner and the subsequent ntuc-shopping trip with my mum n bro, cos i realised that mum made me lend money to her sibling unwittingly. There are several reasons why I'm so affected by this..

1) she wasn't forthright from the start. she kinda lied to me that it's for something else and asked me to transfer to XXX account number.

2) she's always lending her siblings money her whole life and now that me and my bro are working she's starting to make us do it (esp me, since i'm like the nicer of her two children, duh)

3) i know that 99% this person is not gonna pay back, which means that my mum will fork out her own money to pay me back, which means that i can't bear to take my mum's money, which means that ultimately i'm giving away the money, which is as good as losing it into thin air.

4) it's not a small sum, at least not in the hundreds

5) i'm super financially strapped myself right now. if i have money to spare i will. but i don't and especially not right now, when i'm already thinking of how to pay up my impending insurance premiums (and is income tax coming up, anybody? -- been receiving letters from govt but dun dare to open yet).

6) worst of all, i think it's not right if we don't lend my uncle money when he's struggling. but i also don't think we're able to continue helping him this way our whole lives. i know my mum will be super unhappy if we ever refuse to lend, she's like the one and only sibling in the entire family who's always willing to lend her two brothers money. and she never gets it back (but she'll never complain and will scold us if we ever tell her off). sigh. so what can i do? what is a daughter to do??

There are some things in life which we just cannot control. Like having a mum who is too nice to her siblings, like over the limit and taken advantage kind. To the point that I have to even give up my bedroom few years ago for my uncle when he cheated on his wife and was chased out by his family. So my super kind mother told him that he can shift into her daughter's room and stay indefinitely while her daughter sleeps in the master bedroom. Daughters with mums like that would just have to be on the receiving end of such fate, isn't it? I just wonder, is she really doing her brothers a favour by spoiling them rotten? Why are people like us made to pay for people who can't be loyal to their wives and who can't control their gambling, drinking and aggressive habits?

Then there are other things which also cannot be controlled, such as the amount of work u have. I was re-evaluating my work life, and realised that even though i'm determined to take a "back seat" this year, work just comes propelling my way and i can't shield myself with any armour. So the ME in 2007, 2008 and 2009 also wanted to take a backseat, tried, but eventually found her hands all tied up. I have walked the path before and I'm walking the path again.

The only thing that really cheered me up, and the only good news, is that I conducted my first intervention talk for a bunch of kids last week and the target child, who's an autistic boy, touched my hand and told me "you speak so nicely to me, you make me very happy". And it just melted my heart so much.