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Song in my head: The theme song from Curb Your Enthusiasm (I'm a new fan) Mood: don't know Current book: Come Hither Blah. I've gotta stop updating just on Thursdays. Blah, blah! Not to mention that I need to leave in less than ten minutes to get to yoga. How substantive can I be in ten minutes? Wow, hey, tomorrow I'm gonna be 30! I've been spending so much time saying, hey, I'm almost 30, that the actual Changing of the Decades just sorta snuck up on me. I'm feeling kinda moody about it, and kind of calm about it, and kind of anti-climactic about it. Hmm. More to come tomorrow, perhaps. Musings upon a new decade. Neat stuff: Ben is taking me to North Carolina in April to spend Passover at his mom's house. (She invited me! Which I suppose is only the polite thing to do, but it's better than her leaving it up to him to ask about.) So I'm gonna take the first week of April off from work (April! Spring will be in the air!) and we'll fly down to Charlotte and then rent a car and go to Asheville to see his sister, and then to Boone to visit my cousin Neil. Wow - our first trip together. I am hoping we travel well together, and don't turn into snarling, snapping beasts. I don't think we will, but I know how travel can bring out the worst in people. Since I have so little time, I'm gonna reprint some excerpts from a post I made last night (anonymously) in an online relationship forum I just joined. It's some heavy-ish stuff, though I do feel better for having gotten it out of my system (ain't that always the truth!) "A little background [which you all know]: I think Ben and I are in a similar boat - he has little experience in relationships, and I have a lot of bad experience, so we're both really newbies when it comes to having a healthy relationship. I think we're doing really well, all things considered, but I am starting to think that there are a lot of skills involved that neither of us have developed. Our love and passion and kindness and consideration are all wonderful, but I think they can only get us so far, and I really want to do it right this time. I want to have as healthy a relationship as I can. This weekend I was visiting my parents (they live about 90 minutes away, and I've never been more than 2-3 hours away from them) - they're celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary this month. I'm often in awe of that - a marriage as long as my entire life! - and I sometimes feel a little intimidated by that, like somehow in having my string of bad relationships, I haven't succeeded the way they have. (I am getting better about that.) So Sunday morning my mom and I were in the living room watching TV and chatting while my dad was in his office getting ready to do his taxes. Suddenly he storms out of the room, slamming the door, and shouting at my mother, "Where the fuck is my form, goddamn it?!" When she replied that she didn't know, he muttered something like "well, fuck you, bitch" and stormed back into the office. I asked my mom, "how can you deal with him talking to you like that?" and she replied, "I just don't let it bother me!" Ten minutes later, when he finally found it, he emerged again and both he and my mother acted like nothing had ever happened. Well, it made me sick. I tried to imagine Ben talking to me like that and it made me want to cry - I (thankfully) couldn't even imagine it. (And I feel so heartsick for my mom, even though I know there's nothing I can do about it.) But I realized, my entire life, my father talked to my mother like that. He talked to me and my brother like that. Provoked by the smallest of annoyances (often having nothing to do with us), he would slash at us with his words and then completely dismiss it. And we all colluded with it. To this day - and sadly, his behavior on Sunday is greatly improved since when I was a kid - we all still, especially my mother, now that my brother and I live out of the house, do everything within our power to placate him. Smooth things over. Why bother bringing such-and-such up, it'll only upset Dad. It's certainly the pattern I brought to all my other relationships, especially my abusive ex. I've swallowed my words and preferences and go along with the flow to avoid any sort of conflict. I think that leaving the abusive relationship was a huge step for me. And choosing Ben as a partner, someone who doesn't treat me like my dad did (and it's painful to write about my dad like this, because I love him, and he loves me, yet I can't ignore the legacy he's given me), has been a huge step for me. I feel like I've reached a milestone - I know what I can never put up with again. I'm going in the right direction. And I want to keep going that way. Because I'm starting to find myself projecting my fears of how I've been treated onto Ben I remember as a kid, if I had to ask my father for something, I'd be so afraid to say anything to him that I would sit in the room with him and mentally rehearse what I wanted to say for so long, I'd sometimes be unsure if I'd actually said it out loud or not. And lots of times I would give up and not say anything at all. Sometimes I do that with Ben. I want to ask about something or suggest something or bring up something and I think about and think about it and get so worked up and anxious I don't say anything at all. I've never learned how to compromise - only to give in. I used to be the perfect Stepford Wife - I'm fantastic at anticipating someone's needs and accommodating them and saying, "no, no, honey, whatever you want." I'm trying so hard to reverse it, but it sometimes it still feels foreign and wrong to consider my needs. Sometimes I don't even know what I want. And asking for what I want seems like too much, an imposition. I force myself in small ways, and it's uncomfortable at first, although Ben is almost always happy to do something for me if I ask for it. Case in point: [Louse story you've all heard before] So fast forward to the present with B. - I'll ask him to hold me or comfort me and he's always delighted to do it, and I'll thank him, and he's always astonished that I think it's a burden for him. So I'm making strides, but I still find myself closing off to opportunities. Like I'll think to myself, "maybe I could get a book on communication for couples and that'll help us talk about things" and I immediately think to myself, "no way, Ben would never do that, that kind of thing is stupid," which is entirely my dad talking. I project these ideas of what a man in a relationship would think solely based on my dad (he intimates that he thinks therapy or any kind of self-help is utter and total bullshit for weaklings, and why should he have to change for anyone or anything?), and I worry that it's starting to get in the way of me taking the risk of getting to know Ben for who he really is instead of just assuming. [thanks for listening stuff]" Damn, I really need to go to yoga. But getting all that out helped. I wrote it out last night and then came home and Ben walked in just a few minutes after me and I immediately burst into tears and he held me and listened to everything that was going on in my head and that helped too. And then this morning I woke up horrified from my dream - in the dream I had been in bed with Ben and we woke up to hear my father screaming, making the most horrible sound I've ever heard, like he was dying, maybe, and I jumped up and said, "oh my god, that's my daddy" (and I never call him daddy, that's weird), and ran into Cynthia's room where my parents were, sitting on the bed with her. My dad just said, "I hit her" (my mom) and I went ballistic and I think I was hitting my dad, flailing at him like a little kid, and then I started hitting my mom, and screaming at her, "how could you let him do this to you!!!!" and then I woke up and I've felt troubled all day. Ugh. How ugly this all is. In the dream I didn't look much at my father, but I'm aware of feeling like he was just ready to explode with rage and grief and despair and just fall apart. And that's why I wouldn't look at him, I couldn't deal with it. I'm so often afraid of the emotional extremes he can demonstrate, and I think I'm afraid of them in me too. I think I'm ready for yoga now! |
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