The other day I learned how/why my parents got married. It was not good. Equal parts: grand ma’s misunderstanding, brother’s exaggeration and a whole mess of complacency on both the future ma and pa.
I never have seen them hug and kiss. Nor look at each other with desire or pride. Never heard one compliment the other. Never seen a random act of kind love. Never have seen a couple in love.
Except on TV and films and there is so much drama there, you know.
“I wanted to run away. If there was some family to go to, I would have. I didn’t love him, I just liked him. I kind of felt sad for him. Always talking about his hometown and how he missed it.”
Drama, but no love.
I admire resiliency, strength, conviction, faith, endurance, consistency, dependability, responsibility, loyalty, self-sacrifice, and positivity.
I’ve seen that.
I’ve also seen: fear, jealousy, greed, selfishness, non-communication, aggression, passive aggression, resignment, insecurity, absence, stagnation, complacency, loss of hope, pettiness, and stubbornness.
So it is, por vida.
Friends have said we can change or act in the opposite of what we have seen or learned. But what do we do with the teachers? Do we continue to witness and absorb? Do we alter the relationship? How much?
Over many fights, disconnects, re-connects and drama, I now recognize some of my bad habits and have not acted when they come around and want me to scratch the itch. That is different. How long and how many mistakes must I make before I recognize all my bad habits and begin to not do them any more? I often feel like Heathcliff who thought he did everything he could, everything he should, but time, place, and old scars get in the way. Will I be like Heathcliff waiting on the moors since hindsight is usually 20/20.
One friend just told me to “Stop and do not get involved with anyone, anymore, ever again.”
That would be different.
3 comments:
that last piece of advice was terrible! continue to love and to grow, beauty is all around us...
My parents argue all the time... mostly along the lines of my dad getting in my mom's cooking, or my mom haggling my dad about his around the house handy work. I use to think they couldnt stand each other, now i realize they would could not live with out nagging at each other all the time.
Maybe... we all need to someone to nag... know what i mean? :)
I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle of these two comments.
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