When I look forward, it threatens other people because they think my story is more important than theirs…. not because it is, but because it has been written down. It is not seen as, “oh, this is how Leslie sees herself fitting in.” It’s seen as “dictatorship is frowned upon in this establishment.” It has been said that dreaming is free….. let me assure you that this is true as long as you don’t tell anyone what you’re thinking.
Being an INFJ is a rough gig, because the only way I can explain my personality is through a fictional character. His name is Griffin, and he is a multi-dimensional being that perceives every conceivable outcome. What you are reading in my blog when I write are the eventualities I like. It is not a dictatorship. For instance, if Tiina doesn’t like a line, it’s out or corrected/modified, whatever.
The difference is that she does not ask for editorial control, she’s a sounding board. It has been collaborative, whereas with Aada I kind of got the vibe that there was this competition over who worked for whom. Every line was a tug-of-war, and there was no “that’s not what I meant,” because Aada thought that her interpretation was more important than my intent. There’s no way to stop the bleeding in that kind of relationship because apologies don’t work when people think you’re lying. It’s looking through an author’s work for confirmation bias because you have decided that the way you would have written the same story is the truth, and it is easier to berate me for writing my version than it is to put work into capturing your own.
That is what love looked like between me and Aada, where we could connect like a house on fire. When she was not threatened by my writing, she shaped it… because I think that part of her is secretly proud of herself in these pages, and mystified as to why there are so many. She is my companion in the way that Jamie McCrimmon is the audience’s eye in Doctor Who…. the companion that will resonate with her because he’s the namesake for James Alexander Malcom McKenzie Fraser of Outlander.
I also know that she would probably not have known that if I hadn’t told her, because the best way to get someone to ignore something is to tell them how cool it is. Maybe it’s just me, but I make an effort to like what my friends like, at least on a peripheral level, so even if I cannot geek out I know enough to enjoy the conversation. Thus the dedication to re-looking at Tolkien. If Tiina loves him, there’s probably something wrong with me. 😉
I think, though, that when I do it I am seen as obsessive and not trying to connect. People are all different and you have to learn to speak their language if you’re going to love them properly. The best example of this comes from absolutely knowing that Aada loves autistic people and causes, so I got her a bracelet with a puzzle piece on it. What I know 12 years later is that she carries a piece of me every time she wears it. At that time, I supported autistic people. I didn’t even know that Autism and ADHD were related.
So, I didn’t just give her a gift that was thoughtful. She wears a piece of me, and it makes me happy at all I did not know.
So, books and authors are not the only way that Aada and I connected. But the way we came apart is that Aada looked at all my writing and thought, “that feels threatening.” The thought process is that it was fine when she was reading about other people. I was brilliant at character analysis until I took her on, etc.
She loved the mirror I held up until she saw herself in it.
“But” is the most important word in the history of our conversations:
I am not saying I am this person you have portrayed, but…
Everything that followed was a list of all the ways I was indeed right just from reading her writing and never having given her a hug. The problem was not calling me out when I was wrong. It was easier to call me a dictator and run away. Aada’s self-esteem went up and down as I talked, and I was just as equally emotionally dysregulated. It was Internet crack. There was nothing normal like running up to Wawa and grabbing her a coffee shake just because I love her and want her to be happy.
I did, however, get brownie points for offering to come to her house and bust ass after a storm. And that was a real, legitimate offer. She told me her husband had it handled, that’s why she picked him, etc. It was very funny and I felt so loved. She recognized that I was being genuine and met me at altitude.
The biggest mistake I’ve ever made with her was not actually my fault. It’s that I invited her to something that would have been extremely fun in a different context, but I was working from the one I was given. I wish I had invited her to a nondescript place that didn’t make her feel emotional one way or the other, because I think if I’d said, “let’s go walk by the river” instead things would have been different.
It was also the timing, which was just bad in general. I do not intend to take mothers away from their children on Mother’s Day. I did not know that Sunday was Mother’s Day because I don’t have to know that information anymore. I am certain that her kids never knew that I tried to snatch her away that year, but my apologies are freely given, anyway. 😉
I am still struggling with the fact that responding to the reader/writer connection is problematic. That it is viewed as manipulation, when I am a diarist. I am a human that notices patterns across the world, and I comment on them constantly. That’s because what reads local reads global. Every internet writer I’ve ever known has been able to pick out the stats that spook them. It’s what creates the committee providing relentless commentary when you sit down at the keyboard. When you are writing, your friends literally never shut up, but it’s not the 3D version of them. It’s the lines that stick out. The ones that you’re still not over because they require a second look and probably some ice cream to cope.
Writing is a way for me to believe that I am not screaming into the void. That someone, somewhere in the world will think, “that sounds sort of like me.”
One of the biggest shifts for me is being a global writer, not a local one. My stats reflect college towns all over the world, and my readership overall is shifting overseas. This makes me extremely happy, because what I suspected is true is being proven. I am oddly specific about my own life, drawing people in and they are making their own connections as to how my life reflects theirs. I cannot know what is happening in a college town in Nigeria or Cameroon, but I do know that they must see something.
Because what I do know is that I do not want to manipulate people. That was Aada’s therapist’s thing with me, that she doesn’t see she’s being manipulated (as reported by Aada. I am not sure I want to know her therapist anymore.). The reason why is simple. I offered to sit down with both of them and Aada didn’t want that. She wants to continue to believe the story she made up.
Because Aada pulls off “authority figure” a little too well, my general response is a Monty Python “is there someone else up there I could talk to?” Imagining me and Aada in therapy together is both hilarious and tragic. We both have a lot to laugh and cry about, and someone should be there to facilitate the first time. She did not want that, either. I even told her to pick someone like her husband and no dice.
Everything about it seemed illicit, and that was the draw.
Until now.
I just want to live my life unarmed.
So if I am dreaming into the future and you see something you don’t like? I’m not a dictator. It depends on how much you want to cling to the story you’re writing about me.
Stories That Are All True 