As a foul mouthed, overly enthusiastic people pleaser, my reason for being is to hurt as few people as possible while enjoying many borderline innocuous vices. Hopefully without too much collateral damage. Like smoking. Outside of course. Or M & Ms in the bathroom. I risk winding up with lung cancer and gaining back the several hundred pounds I’ve lost over my lifetime. Not desirous, but in my convoluted math, worth the risk. Sometimes. Everything within reason.
READ BY THE AUTHOR ABOVE
I was a bad girl rebel personified for an eventful three years, but it wasn’t as fun as I’d hoped. I turned back to being a good girl because I was sick of being wrong. And tired. And used. All while insisting I wasn’t angry.
I tried desperately to live what I assumed society wanted from me. Stay out of the way while propelling myself forward. A house was meant to be run with an iron fist, while speaking like a lady. A career was everything! Without sacrificing the children, of course, or the husband. Give me some, but keep it all very far away.
The people who have loved me best have been opinionated, strong women, who forever know a better way of doing things. No matter what. Which is so much easier than taking the risk out there on my own.
Family dinner was our version of religious observance. Or penance. Once my father made me cry and humiliated my mother, I’d get up to run into my room.
“Where are you going?” my father would mumble, disappointed in my thin skin.
“Push in the chair!” my mother would call.
Me, doing what I was told. “It’s on an angle!” she’d scream behind me as I ran to sob into a pillow.
I didn’t dress, eat or do my homework without a critique under hyper watchful eyes. Very occasionally they threw a compliment in my direction, but I knew to wait for the backhand. My curly hair was gorgeous but never neat! Would it kill me to brush it? Why was I crying? Stop crying! I wanted more than anything not to be so sensitive. It upset them.
These are the exaggerated interpretations of a child who so desperately wanted everyone’s approval—but would have taken anyone’s. My grown ass, adult response, while subversively brilliant, has lost some of its shine. I stopped making decisions, instead trying to shove myself into jeans that were way too tight, swallowing everything whole and hoping not to pop my fly.
It was a joy to let go of things I didn’t care too much about, like decorating or restaurant choice, car purchase or paint color. With all of these opinionated people around me, I found easy refuge in bowing out of the fight. I still don’t regret the countless arguments and hurt feelings I’ve avoided by being the first to step aside.
With my picker relinquished, from meal prep to landscaping, I gave up control to kindly people who instructed me with a, “you should” precision. But the things I use, the egg pan and a baking tray, are tucked in neatly where I can find them, not too far from the vices, but I am not all that sure what’s in the rest of the kitchen.
For my mother, a shopping trip consisted of this:
“Choose something! It’s on sale. Looks great! I hate shopping. Did I tell you I hate shopping?! Hurry up!”
I was happy to go in and out. There is no kind of clothing that will make me smile in a mirror. I am too much a child of the anorexic 1980s for that. I relied on the kindness of people who enjoyed styling me. These women dressed me at size 12 and at 24, sans out loud judgment or frustration. I’d still be in blouses with sweatpants otherwise.
My mother planned my wedding after she convinced me we wanted the same one, or that I’d be able to plan my daughter’s if I really wanted—the mother circle of life and all. I assured myself I didn’t care as long as I was married in the end. My maid of honor picked the dresses, and a good friend chose mine. I was only thrilled they all had good taste.
By the time of my adulthood, I’d forgotten what it was like to formulate my own opinions without the framework of someone else’s. The price of getting it “wrong,” the thing I was scared of most, was too great. At least in my imagination. I ate 100 lbs worth of opinions.
I stood on the precipice of a decision that would have changed all of our lives. I went into a supermarket and asked what I would buy myself, regardless of my husband and two sons. I walked out, gobsmacked that there was no entree I could make that I hadn’t adjusted to someone else’s taste. It is an emptiness that is also a lesson on how well I love. I took the ginger chews no one likes and left. Then I lost a ton of weight.
It wasn’t until I moved into this new house and switched my narrative to an open and blank slate, that it started to occur to me. I might have an opinion if I asked myself. No matter what anyone else thought. Maybe my generally off kilter sensibility would be interested in expressing itself on an entire shelf of mismatched glasses, even if I’d like the silverware drawer to remain pristine.
I let my husband, in a frenzy of his own, dump most of the contents of our four bedroom house and haul it up here himself to Massachusetts, because I didn’t want to be the one to decide what stays and what goes, to have someone question my choice of the remaining candlesticks, before donating them years from now.
I have a worse confession. I will follow my man down any rabbit hole, and mama love bear him through anything, except a clothing order. I don’t buy clothes for him. This might surprise you, but I hate shopping too. And he pretends to be fine with the half assed way I fold his things. He’s an engineer, not a fashion icon, after all.
Not long ago we both watched as our friend, who came to spend the weekend, bought him exactly the shirts he’d been looking for all this time. As she projected his options onto the television, he seemed so relieved to have found his shopper, as was I. It is not that I haven’t tried. He hates all my choices. Or he did when I was thirty. Since I’ve made very few without him since, maybe it's time to give it another chance?
Last week during my most wonderful Thanksgiving, I had a revelation which left me scrambling for all my beloved turkey boats and platters. The fact that I have no idea where this stuff is, was a gut punch that sent me looking into something I should have long ago. Not crazy, like clothes shopping, but maybe opening up the pantry and peeking inside to formulate some ideas of my own?
I started small, moving the dishwasher detergent pods from the kitchen counter because I’m capable of bending beneath the sink. For now, anyway. I took the pet store's worth of dog treats and gave them a place in the cabinet, because the counter is prime real estate and they already have the run of the house. Every day I’m clearing up one thing. Tomorrow it’s the top shelf of the pantry.
There are so many places in my world that I’ve kept silent because it was much easier to give in, but is it possible that my life could have been full of what I like, what I never wanted to compromise in the first place? I don’t regret it though I feel wistful for that yearning girl of my youth. Much of it isn't important, but finding what is, expressing it, hearing my own thoughts as they happen, feels vital suddenly.
Come on over. I’ll make dinner. What would you like? Never mind, I’ll decide.