It has occurred to me that in my life I have spent too much time obsessing about things. What things you may ask? I suppose most of it has to do with words that come out of my mouth or things I write and send into the atmosphere. But sometimes it is remarks that are made to me out of the blue that get me thinking that someone doesn’t approve of me or how I live my life. As I age these remarks should have less effect on me, but for some reason they don’t. They often haunt me in the middle of the night.
After long conversations with friends one on one I often think of all the personal things I didn’t need to reveal. I remember my mother always worrying about what people would think and maybe there is some residue of that in my mind. She seemed to think that family business should not be spread around. I do not tell everything I know to everyone I know, but there are certain friends I have where things slip out.
The interesting thing is that at the end of a long conversation with someone, I barely remember what they have said to me, only what I have revealed to them. So I am hopeful that they have forgotten what I have said as well. It’s all silliness but part of the human experience.
We can not live this life without getting our feelings hurt over sometimes small insignificant things. But if we carry it into an obsessing mode then we are hurting ourselves more. But letting things go is often easier said than done. On a trip to Canada one year with my husband we were driving back home across Saskatchewan. That province goes on and on with only wheat fields to see from the expressway.
I had a notebook and was writing furiously in it. My husband blames that on my taking Ambien the night before and called it My Ambien Day. Ambien always made me feel depressed. I hardly spoke to him the whole day. But there were two things going on. I was hungry. I am not a nice person when I’m hungry and second I was reliving a slight by a group of friends that I couldn’t get over. Once I had it all written down I felt better even though I was still hungry. My husband had asked me if I wanted to stop and get something to eat, but I was so caught up in my feeling hurt that I just said no.
Another example of dwelling on feeling hurt came when my brother and his family did not come to our daughter’s wedding. We had gotten an answer that he and his wife would be there, but when they hadn’t shown up by the time the wedding was supposed to start all kinds of accident scenarios went through my mind. When confronted by my father on the phone several days after the wedding, my brother said he had been at a barbershop quartet gathering in another state. When my father told him how upset I was, my brother listed all the slights he thought I had given him in the past and that seemed to be his defense.
I always loved my brother deeply and couldn’t understand why he hadn’t let me know he would be out of the state. When he called me a couple of months later to apologize I told him I had already forgiven him. I can not carry a grudge for very long. It hurts too much to do that.
Now that my brother is gone I think back to all the things we should have done to get together when our children were young. Other than major holidays, we seldom saw each other, always blaming the distance between us or the fact that we were too busy.
But here I go blabbing family business. However I will not obsess about telling the story. Our lives are filled with family dynamics and there are bound to be hurt feelings now and again. It is just not healthy to dwell on anything for too long as it becomes counter productive.
I came across a quote by Doris Kearns Goodwin the other day that surprised me. She is such a wonderful historian and I thought her life must be perfect. But what she said struck me as so universal.
And as for the final sphere of love and friendship. I can only say it gets harder once the natural communities of college and hometown are gone….It takes work and commitment, demands tolerations for human frailties, forgiveness for the inevitable disappointment and betrayals that come even with the best of relationships.
It is so easy to dwell on the negative aspects of friends and family, yet it serves no purpose. If I have not heard from a friend in a long time and I want to see them, I don’t concern myself with the fact that they haven’t called me in ages. I just want their company and if they want mine they will accept my invitation to coffee or lunch. They almost always oblige and our conversation starts where it left off the last time we met and all is good.
I will still chafe at a slight or comment or worry that I have said something out of turn, but in the end I will get over it. I always do. I hope you do too.
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