|
My Profile
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone... - 2009-11-05
|
10:35 p.m. - 2006-12-10
So yeah, I just got an email from Joe College. He'll be home on Friday. I have mixed feelings about this. He's my kid and I love him as much as ever. I just don't like him much right now. That stunt he pulled at Thanksgiving was entirely unnecessary. I almost feel like he set me up. Dribbling out his change of plans in the worst possible way so I would explode and then he'd feel justified and full of "I told you so" in front Rachel. Never once did he stop to think it was his own comfort he was thinking of. And it was his own cowardice that prevented him from saying something as kind and as simple as, "Mom, I know this will be upsetting, but please hear me out." Nope, he handed me a stinky bag of crap and then took off. Did he even try to straighten things out? Nuh uh, he hid in his room for two days then he ran away. And on his way out the door he tried to run me through with a big old Parthenian shaft which made much of his wounded feelings over my abuse of him and his ignored carefully wrought plans. How like me not to give noble Alex a chance to explain himself and prove to me how very adult he is, he said. Oh, how I had failed him yet again, but long suffering creature that he was he would do me the courtesy of telling me what a lousy person I was out of the sheer goodness of his heart and would willingly carry his ever-growing load of mother woe back to campus with him because that's the kind of great guy he is. I swear to God. And I thought I raised that boy better. Could he be a more self-serving brat? Alex has this really gross thing about taking the easy way out. If there's anything I would want to rip from my son's character it's his awful awful awful lack of will. He holds to his values and convictions well enough, he's no willow wand swaying in the breeze of popular opinion. But he will never ever do the hard thing. He rarely steps up. Alex is so easily satisfied with the minimal effort. This distresses me. In the extreme. I'm beginning to believe gumption cannot be taught. Either you have it or you don't. Mike has no gumption. He has a ton of gall, but no true gumption. He's another one content to take the 'easy' path even when the consequences arising from the slackery can be downright life-threatening. I know I erred for too many years doing things the hardest way possible, as if virtue can only be found in taking the thorniest path. But when I consider where I was 15 years ago and how I wouldn't even 'stoop' to taking a Sudafed (slackers, cowards and my mother drugged themselves out of life's challenges-- I would not), well let's just say I am learning the middle ground. However, there are some things no amount of fright should stay you from doing. I know myself to be a fearful person. I also know much of my fear comes from projected regret. During those times when I forget this awareness of self and consequence I inevitably end up regretting it. When I am my true self I wound egos left and right. I don't mean to, but I do. For every laugh I get there is an equal number of winces. I speak too truthfully, I think. You know what really messes me up? It's being psychic. I hear your stuff. I feel your stuff so it seems natural to talk about the stuff as though we have an agreement. Uh huh. This is where all Hell breaks loose. I have yet to learn the art of being discrete about other people's mind stuff. You have no idea how much I wish these bulletins from beyond would announce themselves in some way. A trumpet fanfare. If only they would limn themselves in glowing neon. But they don't. The stuff is just there and since it's there it seems like perfectly good conversation fodder. I don't realize I've overstepped the boundary until the person I'm talking to gets peeved and turns snitty. And still I'm like, "What? You were thinking it weren't you?" The gulf between what you think and what you say is easily bridged, I hope you know that. Now imagine for a minute that you can hear the inner dialogs around you. Something along the lines of a Woody Allen film where you are privy to what's really going on inside a character's head. Now imagine you don't realize the characters don't know you can hear it too. Imagine how violating that is to the characters. And how bewildering it is to me when there's no fence between what I should know and what I should not and the people around me get defensive and snarly because I talk about their private stuff with the cheerful confidence of believing we are all on the same page. Is it any wonder I have chosen the seclusion of writing for a living? PS: Info about sonic mouse things is one entry back. PPS: To the twat who keeps bombarding my kid with carefully cruel cuts from my diary, I will explain once again there is nothing I say here I have not nor will not talk about with my kid in person. So save yourself the effort and go torture your own family. ~LA
|
