When you assume, you make an ass of u & me

Assumptions irritate me, especially assuming people who feel that they "know" you, that they expect you to conform to their opinion of you because they truly know what you really are. They sound so smug as if they know you better than yourself.

I feel this all the time with my mother, of all people. Of course, parents have a tendency to want others to think the best of their children. But... its quite disgusting when it seems that she's already creating an imaginary good, perfect child when talking about me and my [imaginary] "accomplishments".

Example, some people from a church where I attend occasionally came over our house for lunch during my birthday. She's there, talking to them about what I am like, how we're so godly and religious and that we were "Salvationists" -- we did attend church some time in the Salvation Army but that was when I was a kid who had no choice but follow my mother. I last went to that church more than ten years ago.

I felt seething anger I kept hidden when my mother began talking about those things. It made me want to argue with her, tell her, "We haven't discussed anything about religion at all. Why are you telling them what I believe in, when you don't actually know what I think and haven't even asked? Its not me you're trying to praise here! You just want to look good in front of them!" I felt... kind of violated.

In fact, there was a period I no longer attended church since Grade 4. Its only now that I began to understand the soundness of Christian principles. Before that, I was much influenced by professors and atheists who argue against the existence of God etc., things I shallowly believed without thinking through.

I had to speak for myself. I told them I haven't stepped in Church for a decade, and that I still have doubts in my mind (that will still be there no matter how much you try to convince me otherwise).

I did mention it to her after they left. I felt embarassed, and I could feel she also does. She scolded me when I brought it up again weeks later. "Nag-ligad na to ah!" ['its in the past'] she'd say and I never mentioned it again.

What I know is, in the Bible, Jesus hated hypocrisy: keeping up appearances of what we actually are not. Right now, I don't hate my mother anymore.

I, not anyone else, must speak for myself.