I can trace my fear back to hundreds of occasions when I got not quite what I wanted. Like eating tons of junk food when all I wanted was fresh home made dinner. It meant I did not do the right thing but what is worse, I did a bad thing instead.
My mom got me a small poodle when I was ten. I remember I wanted a German Shepherd and tortured her with my whining for months before she came up with this so-called "compromise". I did not even give him a name. I spent what felt like a decade walking the ridiculous ball of fur around the block, trying to hide so none of my friends could see my humiliation. I never really took care of him and one day he was gone. My mom had tears in her eyes when she told me he had found a better home.
The education I got was not quite what I wanted, I did not get the grades. The jobs I could apply for after that were nothing like my dreams. I wanted to be someone that faded away each time I looked in the mirror. "You are not quite what I want either!" were the words my last girlfriend shouted at me before she stepped out of the door and left me for good.
I have a fear of wanting. I only dare think of what I "do not want" but still keep on bumping into it anyway.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Into the junk
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2 comments:
That's pretty sad. Most people come to terms with what they become and like themselves, even if that's not what they wanted at first.
A bonus story:
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My cousin's family moved in next to our place when I was seven. She was five at that time, big brown eyes and lots of curls that tingled her nostrils and made her sneeze every now and then.
"This is Mary." -- my mom said to me -- "Go play with her outside."
I took my princess doll Ana with. We dressed it up, pretended it did all the things a princess does. Then one day Mary did not show up at our playground. I found her sitting on the stairs in front of her home. She looked at me, then she saw Ana in my hands, and started sobbing. "Don't you like her anymore," I asked. "I like her. I wish I had one like her so that they could go to parties together."
Next day I took two wooden sticks and gave one to Mary. "This is your princess," I said. We stole flowers from the gardens around, picked up leaves from the trees to make them gowns, to build them things. I did not see Mary sad again.
I am a grown up now. My life does not happen to a doll or to a wooden stick anymore but to me. There are things I do remember, though. I know there are two ways to change your world. You either rearrange the factual way it is, or change the way you perceive it. Moreover, others can do that to you and you can do it to others. To Mary, I did it twice.
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