Week of Revelations
I hope my posting on this blog isn’t reflective of the frequency (rather, infrequency) with which I have something interesting to say. If it did, I wouldn’t be surprised. Hell, throw it on the pile of self-reflection I started…when was it, last Sunday?
I was having lunch with some friends, and one of them was talking about how her mother was driving her stepfather, who had recently been laid off, crazy, wanting to make plans and figure out what they were going to do to support themselves. As a friend, your first instinct is to just agree and say, ‘oh yeah, that lady is crazy’ and I did, at first. And then I started to think about it a little bit and I realized that I would do almost the exact same thing. Hopefully not to the level of neurosis that my friend’s mother seemed to take it, but I would be worried, I would want to make a plan, I would want to sit down and talk about how our lives are going to change, etc; I had always thought that this was a responsible, mature way to handle a situation like this, but I realize (if the reactions of my friends are any indication) that, indeed, the correct approach would have been to let the stepfather take some time, find another job, and figure out things for himself.
I am what some would call a ‘control freak’. I had always thought that this need to be controlling was founded somewhere in the rubble of past relationships and the feelings I had had that if only I had done…’this’ or ‘that’ then things would be different. If only I was some sort of god-like creature that could see into the minds of ex-boyfriends, and have all the information, I could have made something better from it.
I think now, though, that the need to control has always been there, maybe because of being an only child, or reading so much as a child (being able to stop the book/stop the world when I felt like it), or feeling so out of control when I was younger—whatever the case, the controlling thing in relationships is the symptom, not the cause.
This blog is long enough for this particular revelation. The revelation I had on Wednesday—potentially far more shocking and painful soon (or, lets face it, never?) to come.
