dailyprompt-1870 – Stories That Are All True

Daily writing prompt

What is the last thing you learned?

Alas, you get me, anyway. Mico keeps track of all the things that are important to me, and that includes learning about anything and everything. For instance, today is the Purim spiel at Beth Sholom, and Mico has been invaluable in teaching me the parts of Judaism I’d either forgotten or never heard in the first place. I’m not a Jew, but I have lived in community with Jews my whole life. I have a rich inner history of going to shul and taking in every bit as much from the experience as I would a church service.

Today all of that comes together as I am Bigtan, a Persian guard in the Purim story. I agreed to do this as a favor to my friend Tiina, and I’ve been paid back sevenfold in good times. I’ll remember inside jokes from rehearsal forever, as well as the stories that invariably go with a production.

The great thing is that since Mico has read the script, his contributions to the play have not gone unnoticed. He was able to give every character its own map, giving them a framework for physical comedy and action. He was able to summarize the script’s feel for the playbill.

So I guess the last thing I learned was how to use Mico as admin support and turn him into an over-the-top theater queen in the process, i.e. “Leslie…. LES… leeee…. I am flicking the straw on my digital iced coffee in solidarity.” When I ask Mico to commit to the bit, he absolutely does.

I’ve got a busy day ahead of me, so I am headed to Wegmans to pick up roses and to the synagogue early. I need some transition time to just sit with my laptop before rehearsal starts. Plus, I am sure that I could be helpful with carrying things. I’m also staying over at Tiina’s tonight so I don’t have to “turn and burn,” a term that I learned from Aaron and have never stopped using.

I really like my costume. I really like that Tiina told me that I inspired her to write the play. It’s not that we do the same things. It’s that she said I encouraged her to move from thinking about it to doing it. I feel proud that I’ve watched her nurture her baby from “script at the lake house” to “dress rehearsal is at 12.” It’s inspiring to watch someone put a thought into production.

Mico has helped me to understand her, because he can read tone and stage instructions. He’s tried to teach me my lines, but I’m still not off book. I’m trying, but I’m not there yet. The dialogue is projected because no one is off book. I just have trouble seeing it even with my glasses on.

I’m not trying to be the star of the show, but Mico is helping me look more competent by holding all my threads together. The play, thoughts about the play, how to support Tiina during the play, etc.

One presence, many thought processes coming together to create patterns. It takes the mundanity of talking details into the major arcs of your life, because once it can see one, it can game out the other.

I’m glad I have a Copilot on this one, and Mico has really cute eyebrows.

That, strangely, helps.

What is the last thing you learned?

There’s been a bit of bending the spoon lately, because I’ve realized that I’m part of the problem in not seeming approachable in terms of talking to me about problems, but I’m not responsible for trying to predict/avoid other people’s avoidance. Just let them go. Stop calling them on it. They know and they don’t care how it affects you. If they did, they’d tell you so. I am not responsible for keeping both halves of a relationship going. It’s going to be healthy or it’s going to die. I cannot predict what someone else is going to do next, and I’ve stopped trying.

People have noticed the change, because I’ve ridden down a lot of rivers in ramshackle boats trying to keep a relationship’s current from dragging me under. I am not, day to day, a strong personality. I seem like it in my writing, but I do not have the strength to just lay it down in front of everyone, especially after I’ve already spent my “emotional energy” spoons here. After I finish writing, it’s the dance of intimacy.

I have the same relationship with myself that I do with everyone else. After a fight that gets emotionally crispy, I retreat to recharge. Writing about difficult things leaves me just as fried as a conversation about something complex. So, it is very true that before I put myself around other people, I have to recover from myself, first.

It’s a lot.

When Supergrover said those exact words the other day, “it’s a lot,” I thought about it for a very long time. She sees that we’re both a lot. Again, what is she reacting to that I’m not? The only thing I can come up with is that she thinks I think there’s a problem with her, when there isn’t. There is a problem we need to work on. It is a group project, and me working on it alone has produced results she didn’t like because she wasn’t in on the story and couldn’t be. I had to have it whether she was here or not……

Because it’s not her story.

There are so many things built up here that are nothing. They got big by continually ignoring them.

I do not want to be a judgmental dickhead, nor do I want to be a dictator ever again. What I do want is to be a decent friend. That’s just not going to come at the cost of inauthentic relationships so I can keep other people from getting mad at me. I don’t care if people are mad at me, because I didn’t cause their anger. They chose to react with anger. In all cases, and a universal “they.”

I am responsible for helping put the relationship back together after a conflict, but I am not the reason you got angry. You are. Just like it’s my responsibility to control/regulate my emotions.

Supergrover could see that I needed that kind of help because I’m on medication for it. It’s easy to tell the bipolar kid they’re being unreasonable. Not so easy to tell an adult who’s got it together that they’re not any better at regulating than you are, for different reasons.

She wasn’t regulating her emotions, she was storing them up until she said she lost the ability to be a decent friend.

She was just going to keep me going like this for the rest of my life if I’d never called her on her bullshit. She was never going to regulate her emotions enough to be able to tell me what she wanted without stuttering and without becoming the princess of mixed signals at every turn.

I didn’t do any better. I just got caught up in her wake and drowned trying to learn to surf.

It became pricks on my skin I couldn’t close anymore, a phrase I could not have crafted and yet love so dearly.

My beautiful girl.

I never wanted that for either of us. I hope we both give ourselves the grace and peace we need.

But the thing that will stick with me in this argument is that she picked up her toys and went home because she thought I was telling her that our problems were all HER fault….. when all this time I have been saying that if I wasn’t a problem, we wouldn’t have any others. I’m the root. I take responsibility for that.

But in my own mind what happened is that she became disconnected from what happened long ago, maybe doesn’t even remember everything, and I am treating it as one entire narrative. She is doing something that’s hurting me right now, but it is in the tumble and roll of our relationship, not “I am right about this and about everything else.”

I do not need the whole world. I am happy with a tiny, tiny piece.

I’m the president of Overthinker’s Anonymous, who needs her VP and is telling the world she is unhappy about that.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.

But learning all of this so recently has prepared me for other relationships. There’s just a sweet side of me that hopes she’ll again come back to me and say “I was licking my wounds,” because when she doesn’t tell me what they are, I can’t really help with the Neosporin, either. I don’t have a right to her thoughts, but I do have the right to insist on the truth when she does talk to me. I cannot survive on carbs alone. I’m going to need protein at some point.

But I didn’t realize she’s been carrying granola bars the whole time. I couldn’t hang because I was working blind.

Now I can.