Just a few days before I had lunch with Janel and Roberta, I had a soul baring session with my girlfriends here in GR. We were sharing things that we struggle with. These girls already know me pretty well; I've been friends with them for ten or more years. When I commented, "I'm so needy! I hate that I'm so needy!" there were confused looks all around the room.
Heidi said, "What does that mean? I don't get what you're saying." Apparently I don't seem as needy on the outside.
Later, driving home, Heidi and I were rehashing the evening when I referred to myself as being, "so dramatic."
"What? That's the second thing tonight you've said that surprised me."
Seems that my efforts to rein in the drama have been reasonably successful.
Back to lunch with my "old" friends. (Janel, that is perfectly acceptable use of quotation marks, and even in my mind I did not do them in the air!) I repeated the story about not being seen as needy or dramatic.
It's a credit to their self control that they didn't snort their drinks or choke on their food. They merely chuckled, shook their heads and gave me the, "Yeah right," look. Of course, when Janel, Roberta and I were in more frequent contact, those two character traits were on daily display.
I'm not saying that I have or haven't grown and changed. I think you could make the case either way. I do have more self control, which all good grown ups should have, and I do have more confidence generally. On the other hand, in my head I still react with fierce drama to sometimes small things and I have a fierce need to be reassured. Wouldn't it be healthier to at least acknowledge that a little bit more? Is self control just a cover up for honesty?
7 comments:
Do we continue, all our lives, to see ourselves in the states we were in when we realized who we really are? If that is the case I am a show-tunes singing, fat, pimple faced, crooked teeth, dramatic, yet often creative girl....hum..yep, no changes here.
Ginger, I think you have lovely skin and I would never describe you as fat. The show tunes and the drama though? yeah.
i think, not only do we continue to see ourselves the way we were, but we see most others around us the way we knew them when we first really got to know them. The challenge is then to allow for growth in ourselves and also in others and to recognize it when it shows up. It's that recognition part that i think we most often miss... unless, of course the change is for the worse, then we jump right on that; at least in other people, probably not so much in ourselves.
I must really be into the discussion of this post!
Christi, you've made this comment to me before, so you must feel strongly about it, but I generally disagree. I don't feel like people that I see on a regular basis lock me in to being the way I was when I met them- unless I invite them to do so! I've worked in Holland for about 12 years, which is plenty of time to grow and change and I think people who've known me for the duration will agree that I used to open my mouth and cause trouble much more often. I'm much more judicious about when trouble needs to be caused. I also think that they will tell you that I've mellowed a lot.
I think it's people that you see rarely that lock you in to where you were. You (you, Christi, not you generally) have some pretty sharply defined chapters in your life. You inhabited places in life with pretty clear borders. When you turned the page on new chapter in your life it was more like starting a new book. When you have to cross back into a previous book in your life, your people probably haven't had a ton of contact with you since you last left or last crossed back.
I'm sure that if I spent any quantity of time with Janel and Roberta they would see and acknowledge the ways I've changed and agree that some things are still the same.
It's sometimes hard to get past the person you USED to know and to see the person as they are now. I know that my family still thinks I'm 13. Janel and Roberta know high-school Tonia, while your GR friends have been with you the last several years and probably haven't noticed that you've evolved because it's a slow process and they've taken the journey with you. You never notice that the tree in your front yard is growing and then one day someone visits and is like, "Whoa! When did that tree get so big?!?"
Tonia - thanks for the clarification of "old". (Enjoy the quotes?) Whenever we get together, I'm really struck with how easy it is to feel ... comfortable, I guess, talking with you. And it's awesome how much your blog sounds exactly like YOU.
Of course we haven't been involved in most of the details and minutiae of each other's lives over the years, but it does my heart good to know that our friendship back in the day was REAL, not just some fluke of class schedules and common friends. And I think it carries through to the present in a very unique way that newer friendships don't. Specifically, we can understand each other through then lens of our shared histories, not because we have each other pigeonholed into how we behaved (shudder) when we were 13-18.
Your question about honesty is interesting. I think we stay generally the same at the core (needs, fears, ethics, beliefs), but we learn to adjust and refine our behavior to be better people - for ourselves and the people around us. The danger is that it’s easy to become adept at adjusting, adjusting, adjusting, and one day simply lose track of who we are. It almost happened to me once, and I’ve seen it happen too often to others. It’s entirely healthy to be true to your inner feelings, as long as the manifestations of your honesty don’t involve a screaming match or climbing a tree. Balance is a beautiful thing.
It does makes me kind of sad that we missed 15 years of the details that would have been a lot of fun sharing. I have no doubt that had we kept in closer contact, you would have kept me out of some of the trouble I found. How? Your firsthand experience with the very unrefined me wouldn't have fallen for whatever line I was feeding myself and everyone else. And you would have likely helped me stay truer to myself. Since you knew the coarser, youthful versions of me, you could have easily seen through any out-of-character "refinements" that were taking me off course.
Sometimes it's comforting to be understood without having to explain or reveal your inner self; the rest of the time it's irritating. Ah, I think everything in life is a balancing act!
Hey Janel! I totally agree with you about how comfortable it is to hang out even now. It's not one of those things I have to mentally gear up for. And like I said when I saw you, it really is hard to say good-bye.
I also have to agree with your take on honesty. Balance is a good word, as is timing. I suppose there is a time and a place to be perfectly free with your feelings and a time and a place to be more nuanced. How's that for a word? :-)
At work I used to be pretty dramatic about my opinions. I know older teachers found my style irritating, even if they wanted to agree with my position.
Two years ago I was reassigned to a work with a teacher I hadn't worked with in five year. His comment to my job share partner was, "What happened to Tonia? She sure has mellowed," or words to that effect.
I like to think I've learned when hold my tongue and when to let 'er rip. Actually, I've even learned some professional diplomacy when letting my position be known. So, I guess that brings us back to balance.
We could write books my friend!
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