Monday, December 26, 2011

The Truth (I Think I Can Handle It)

In 'A Few Good Men' Jack Nicholson says, "You want the truth? You can't HANDLE the truth!" I've always loved that. It's a brutally honest statement. How many times do you want to hear the truth but tremble when you think you might hear something for which you aren't prepared? It's tough to detect your own 'truth' when you're in the midst of it, so hard to analyze and capture who you are, so much easier to pin down someone else's qualities, not because that's a nasty thing to do; it's just easier to define another person because you're not distracted by all the extraneous information. For that reason, another person can bare your truth to you and it can be shocking.

Whatever it takes, my task here is to tell the truth as best I can. I have to combat the lies that try to invade my thinking, skew the logic, rewrite what has happened, and I need to clean up the dirty parts. So here I will put what I think is the truth, and it might be more exposing and painful than writing about the lies.

The truth is that I keep my word, I am loyal and reliable, I take my commitments very seriously, I am naive and I am hopeful. I am fun, funny, very smart, very hardworking, somewhat pretty, have aged well, have a decent body for a 60-year-old, am loving and responsible. I am nurturing and patient, am usually a reliable friend and pretty good with money. OK, that's the good stuff.

The other part of the truth is that I find it difficult to stand up for myself because I don't like conflict, I don't like arguing, I don't like strife, and as a result I have made too many concessions in order to keep the peace. It's also easy for me to feel guilty and I feel horrible and unforgiving of myself when I feel guilty. I withdraw rather than confront. I can end up sacrificing honesty in order to avoid conflict. That can end up looking two-faced. I don't like that quality in others and don't like it in myself. As a subconscious coping mechanism, I can shut down and tune out. One of my sisters says I go into my own little world at times. Not only do I do that when I feel I have no control over a situation, I do it when I am tired of someone--not necessarily angry with them, just needing a break from them. I can be too trusting and optimistic in a way that causes me harm.

Then there are nervous habits, or the things that can be annoying, or unglamorous. I don't like to dust. Piles of paper grow in my surroundings, and I dislike cleaning them up. I also dislike filing. Although I would like a more streamlined environment than I have, it's hard for me to throw things out. It's hard for me to put certain types of things away, and the environmental chaos I cause for myself disturbs me. And at work I think that disturbs others.

When I am thinking about something or even driving in the car, I pick the left side of my lower lip. I will, on occasion, pick my nose. I have been known to talk with food in my mouth. Although I try not to, it's just hard to wait to say things at times. My father will tell you I eat too fast and I am always late. The truth is I'm not ALWAYS late, but I have an intense dislike of waiting for others. And sometimes I eat too fast. Laura tells me my worst quality is when we are going on a trip and I get anxious about leaving on time. There are reasons for that but I have promised her I will work very hard at not getting snippy when I want us to get going. But I've got to say, that if that's what my daughter sees as my worst quality, and we only go on three trips a year, that's not too bad. Laura also says that having my dad in the home is something that would put off men. It certainly put off Bill, but I don't want to put my dad in a 'home'. Next I am going to ask Kyle what he thinks are my poor qualities and I have a feeling I am going to get a very different answer.

Sometimes I can act like a know-it-all. Sometimes I interrupt. Sometimes I'm not grateful when I should be, or reciprocate enough, and I don't think I am astute enough when I'm with my friends and then I have trouble coming up with ideas for gifts for them---but it's not that I don't care about them. When I am worrying about money, I find it hard to be generous.

Bill said I wasn't focusing on him. It was true. I was torn during those last six to eight months with him. This was not because he had cancer; this was because he had taken money from me (again) in the form of buying himself a $3300 camera on my credit card, he had started trying to access more of my dad's money while concurrently being very unkind to him, and he had started insulting me. (I didn't even know about the gambling yet.) I was staying with him because I felt it was my duty. I didn't love him like a wife should because I felt he was betraying me and setting me up again. Therefore, a number of times I was just going through the motions as a wife. I wasn't devastated that my husband was supposed to be dying. I was sad and a little frightened, but honestly---painfully honestly---there was an amount of relief. Ouch, it hurts to write that. It had been a difficult marriage, at times exhausting. I thought I was being given an 'out'. Ouch again.

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