Intuition is when you approach home (which could be pretty much any place, your coffee shop, your actual house, or just any spot) and you feel an anxiety that you can't ignore.

Like approaching the Starbucks the other day, and I was feeling like utter crap. As sad as I can get as my day had barely begun. Then I see the gang, with one of them sitting in middle of the lot, crying.

Like climbing up to the house and feeling like turning around and walking back, or reluctantly coming home from a depressing walk at the mall. At the door, I am apprehended instead of welcomed. Apparently, I am guilty for ignoring a huge mess of newspapers on my way out. I was running late. And it was too windy for tidiness' sake. But the way I was accused was as if I've never done anything good in this household. Never baked cookies, never baked chocolate cake, never decorated the tree, never cooked pasta, never folded the laundry in precise neatness, never washed the dishes or cleaned the kitchen in my disctinct signature way. If love covers all sin, then I am not loved.

The crying friend I mentioned earlier was remarkable with being honest. She rarely acknowledges her feelings, which is a big thing; only she was able to begin because I wasn't there. She is disappointed in me, she said, for reasons that the rest of the gang finds unreasonable.

Anyway, she gave me two Christmas gifts, both of which I genuinely like. And everytime she mentions my sense of style, she gloats about how proud she is that she did buy the right stuff for me.

It uncannily makes me feel like I'm some mistress lavished with so much stuff. The way she nodded as she gloated, as I look back at that moment, makes me feel objectified. The same way I feel when men click on me for cybersex, only to have that feeling intensified after gratification. The same way my family rarely thanks me for anything. The same way ingrates demand for a change of grade. The same way my parents always see me as "the eldest." The same way our church sees us as "money."