I am suffering, you see, from a very nasty case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. As a matter of fact, I seem to have a chronic case.
I do apologize ahead of time for what seems to be a lengthening list of very angsty, sort-of teenage blogs about my own troubles. I am falling farther and farther away from my original intent, to write about the antics of my kids. However, to be a good parent, to understand your children, you must first understand yourself. I am on the long journey toward that destination. As it would seem, it is not surprising that I am writing these teenage blogs, for everyday, I come closer and closer to the realization that I am still that sixteen-year-old girl, trapped in this body of an adult. I have an over-riding need for acceptance, and a nasty inclination toward gossip and vengeful spite. I take out my own insecurities on others. I fault others for finding me disagreeable when I, intentionally, make myself so. It is a very nasty spiral of events, don't you think?
More to the point, though, is the e-mail. It is an e-mail I sent to a friend with no particular intentions, just a friendly sort of ditty. Or so I believed. After rereading it, I see that perhaps it seemed otherwise. You see, I stupidly mentioned one or two or four mutual "friends" and made some vague statements about their effect on my life. Now my fear, and I believe this fear to be real, is that this was a very, very bad idea.
In the past year or so, I have had to face some demons from my past. Although I have never been deliberately hurtful or mean-spirited, I did spend a great deal of my later-adolescent (cough, ealry adult, cough) years just not caring about other people. I never went out of my way to make people cry, but if they cried over something I said, it was certainly no skin off my teeth. My bravado was embarrassing, only made worse by my overt attempts to MAKE people not like me, if I, in fact, did not like them. Or, if inside, I really thought they didn't like me anyway. I acted out a lot. I am sure now they have some form of Ridilin for this. I am looking into it. But now...Now I look back in shame. But now, I am also 1,000 miles away from my past. Literally. And those images do not easily fade from people's minds. And saying, "I've changed" really has very little effect on people you have hurt or wronged, especially if they do not get the pleasure of experiencing this change first-hand. And so...
Whenever I talk about anyone, even in passing, even with nostalgia and regret, even with love and remorse, my past attitudes creep sneakily up from my behind, and bite me firmly on the ass. And so I find myself, constantly, with one hand wrapped around my ankle FIERCELY pulling my foot out of the back of my throat. And sometimes it is entangled back there with my uvula and tonsils and all that seedy hatred that I used to spread so easily. And all along, I feel like I have this one sided game of Tug Of War going on, fighting with myself. I am apologizing ahead of time, for things I may not have even said, just in case their meaning should become misconstrued later on, in the hands of someone else. This is certainly problematic in today's cyber/e-mail-y world, where you can't see my face, or hear my tone of voice and instead all you get are these WORDS. And words are oh, so powerful. More so when taken out of context or misunderstood. Because you can never take back your words, you can just back-pedal. And then, it just looks like you are covering. And so instead I just keep talking. And in the back of my head there is this voice shouting, "Shut the F&*% UP!" That voice may be Lucas's. He tries so hard to keep me out of trouble.
And so this may explain my ghosts, my phantom friends. I am worried that I wronged them, and then perhaps wronged them again in an e-mail I meant to be almost jovial in spirit. Alas, in spirit does not translate well on my computer. Perhaps I should start using those emoti-cons more often. I will follow every sentence with little smiling winking faces. Foolish, that is. I just get so frustrated at myself. I try so hard to use the grown-up's potty, but to be honest, I am still walking around in emotional training pants. And isn't that sad. I have a terrific marriage. Enviable, some might say. But MAN if I just can't make it work anywhere else. Sometimes I think I will just give up socialization all together. I will become a hermit lady in my own home. Raising my kids and hanging out with Luke and never again facing the outside world. But then I would have to home-school...and I am already looking forward to having them out of the house... Poo. I'll find my way. Worry not, I will be back on the horse in no time. Perhaps I can find a funny story about Helen and Philip to tell tomorrow and we can put all this messy business behind us.
No comments:
Post a Comment