Crying makes you transparent, I've found.
There's time and distance between me and my beloved, and my other beloved: my sister, and my mother. I can see my sister again. The distance bit is the thousands of miles between us: there could be more thousands, but four is enough. It makes for some emphatic emails:
"Did you do anything about the ______? I told you to take it to ________, while he's still with _______. They are moving to a different house, they'll have two bedrooms- remember that? So he won't need _______ after that. Personally I think the term Conscious Uncoupling is a lot of Unconscious Pretention (ha ha!)"
...I'm not being fair: I should mention that my emails sound like that, not my sister's. Otherwise there's a good deal of "Miss you" and "This sucks", probably much more than regular people's sibling emails. I don't know why we have such a thick and resilient bond, but we do. I value my sister for many, many reasons, but I think the main one is that she is another me. She has chosen to lead a selfish life, and I get to lead one vicariously because of it.
My sis isn't a selfish person. She's just chosen a few Ways to Be that require a fundamental focus on what she wants, what she really really wants; she picked it up from our Aunt and Uncle, who also chose to be selfish in their own ways. The first thing for all of them is the choice not to have a child or children, and depending on which group of friends you belong to, gentle reader, you'll either be shocked- SHOCKED!- and possibly deluded, thinking that they don't know what they're missing; the other group will think well, of course.
The other and less overt way that my relatives have chosen to be selfish is that they live their lives without fear of garnering ill wishes. I find this part the most difficult. I myself wish to live without that fear, but am sometimes terrified that it's the wrong choice. What if worrying what people think is justified? What if I live without this fear but it turns out there was this one person, an influential and/or inspiring person who might have helped me become a better ______, but without thinking I farted while in front of them in line at the Tesco and now they will ever think I'm self-centered and smelly? What if in so doing I ignore someone who deserves my care and attention, just out of habit? I like to think that I'm more concerned with being an asshole than being perceived as an asshole, but I don't think one can really be that clear-sighted about oneself without hallucinogens. And I wouldn't know how to begin scoring some of those out here in the bucolic British countryside.
So...and so. Back to time, and distance. It seems my husband has noticed that I am in two places at once. Worse, it seems that being split like that- no matter how well you are able to straddle things- does the inevitable and pulls you apart. I have always hated conflict: when I was very little I would hide under tables to avoid anger, especially from our Dad, who was a man who could really sell things, and one of the things he sold was his emotional state. He wasn't hysterical or normally filled with rage, but when he was angry I would hide under a table in mute terror until someone (Mom, usually) came and found me hours later. It's just me. I hid in the face of anger. I've become much much better at having it out, now that I'm an adult and the tables are all too small to hide me effectively; still, when I'm split in two like this the old habits are so accessible. But my husband called me out, and we had it out, again, much the same as we have before because we're a couple that's been together longer than five years, and I cried.
Mom, the other beloved, wouldn't have patience for me either at this point: she'd tell me to get on with it. She'd be right, natch. But I join the millions who hide or drink or make copious amounts of decoupage to avoid anger, afraid of- something. Afraid of being transparent, I guess.
