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| I have long suspected
that I have an infatuation of sorts with my mother. After overcoming
the inital "ew factor" of this incestuous realization, I truly think
this is a veritable statement. Recently, while we were both mixing our
morning vitamins, I said to her that I thought one of them was actually
increasing my weight, rather than helping me to keep it down and manage
it. She said that maybe I should not take it anymore, then. A logical
conclusion, but I think it was fueled by the conversation we had a few
days prior when I mused aloud why the company never made a
value size version of the same supplement; she agreed and questioned my
personal need for it, which implied negatively to me that I did not need it and should not
take it. I think that at the second and more recent incident, she was
trying to discourage me from taking it so that she could keep more for
herself, which is fine as we are all fueled by our own desires, but
could we not order more? We have been taking them for over 10 years, so
she has been ordering the smaller version for as long as she has been
taking it. And in fact, I believe this to be her most subtle, but
strongest quality: My mother always acts for her own ends. Before I launch into a tirade against her, though, I have to establish
my own position. That is, my infatuation. How is it that I think I am
infatuated with her?
I feel that I do not treat her as a son should, with love and respect,
but rather, as someone to use for my ends (i.e., banking :D, cooking,
cleaning, etc.). This is a bit more harsh than I mean it to sound, but
the idea is the same, that is, I have acted as an employer, and not a
very good one at that. However, while I may use her for my own devices,
she still holds a matronly authority over me. I still feel an
obligation to do her bidding, however begrudgingly, and I still feel a
need to care for her, however ineptly. It's as if I've put her on a
pedestal and used it as a footstool. And in fact, through this hazy fog
of utility and concern, I have been blind to all her faults, though she
has many. After all, she may be mom, businesswoman, wife, and sister,
but in the end, she is still just another human being. And what is it
that makes us human if not our faults?
While I am certainly an amalgam (What a difficult word to spell!) of my
parents' personalities, there are many times I feel more like her and
in fact, imitate her actions exactly. There was this one time that my
mother and father got into a very heated altercation and my mom banged
on the bathroom counter with her hand or something, screaming some
words best not repeated here. And in an almost exact reenactment of the
scene, the next time my father and I fought, I did the exact same
thing, saying almost the exact same words. If I could learn to eat and
bathe from her, would it not follow that I would learn to argue from
her? And is imitation not the highest form of flattery?
It's a difficult and complex thing, the mother-son relationship. Most
of us know of Freud's cogitation on the subject, that is, the Oedipus
complex. Oedipus, the crown-prince of Thebes, was sentenced to death to prevent the fulfillment of a prophecy in which he would
murder his father and marry his mother, but instead, after being hung feetwise from a tree, was found by a passing peasant and adopted by another king, after
which he returned and unknowingly killed his father, saved Thebes from
a riddling cat, married his mother and had FOUR children by her. After
finding out the truth, his mother-wife-queen killed herself, he blinded
himself, and his children all went on to die notorious deaths. On top
of all this, he had swollen feet from when the inobedient herdsman who
was supposed to kill him in the first place did not, and instead, hung
him by his feet from a tree, thereby inadvertently bestowing his name of "Swollen Feet" upon him. No wonder the
Greeks were so adamant to create a myth about not sleeping with your
parents! (Don't worry, they have a similar story, and thus, a similar
complex for girls, too. There's no sex, but there's definitely violence with Electra.)
Regardless, the Oedipus complex
is about perceiving one's father as an opponent vying for the affection
of one's mother, and in fact, there is a further train of thought on
how this leads to homosexuality, neurosis, and pedophilia,
but these are discussions for another time :). It's true that I have
always been at odds with my father and retreated to my mother. Does
this mean I want to kill him and have children with her? No. But
does it create a tense situation in which I am constantly arguing with
my dad and f orever mistreating my mom? Yes.
Fortunately, I think this fog of infatuation is lifting and the
incestuous cumulonimbus are scurrying away. Like the time my dad and I
argued and I laid in my bed to cry and I think I called her in and she
lay beside me and I just continued to whimper and she asked in a nasty
tone if I just called her in to listen to me cry. Or how she used to
send my sister away to a governess because she was busy with her
salons. As I start to remember memories such as these and remind myself
that she too is human, I think I can
learn to respect and love her more. I think it really is like what we
learned in high school psychology, that is, one learns to love another
in spite of that person's faults, not in ignorance of them. More and
more, I am correcting myself in my bratty and spoiled ways with my
mother. I say thank you, I hug her, I question my flares of
temper with her, I buy her gifts, I do my chores without being told to, I do puzzles with her, etc. While I am nowhere near where
I would like to be in our relationship, I know that we will one day be
able to tell our own myth of mother and son with tears of joy and blood
shed of love.
PS - On a similar, but tangential note, I think that my relationship with my
manager at the hotel echoes that between my mother and I. She is a
middle-aged Asian woman with a fierce, indepedent personality, married
to a husband she loves but unsure of why, and religiously devoted to
her children. Both are honest, great saleswoman, and pretty in pink. In
fact, I think I just wrote a description of my mother. Am I
infatuated with my boss? Possibly. Is it incestuous? Fortunately not,
though office romances between a gay, committed twentysomething and
straight, married fortysomething usually end up in the newspaper and
not in the wedding section :).
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| You know, before the year-end inundation of people reflecting, I thought I'd take some quick time right now to do some introspectin' myself. Mirror, mirror hanging on the wall... (In the Zara fitting room at Menlo. I think I have a future as a fashion photographer, no :)?) 1) Got a new job at the Holiday Inn. OK pay, sales and middle management experience, knowledgeable and experienced manager, hospitality industry. All in all, a good move. 2) Earned my first commission check from MA! Went through the pay cycle once and promoted to Executive Coordinator. Very proud of myself. 3) Moving on with my romantic life. More fish in the sea. Learn to not be such a jealous betch :). 4) Bought a new bed. When I find the right setting, it's perrrrfect. Love my new pilow, too. Fluffy and supportive :). 5) Made new friends and acquaintances. Trying to not be so uptight (haha, good luck!). Trying to figure myself out (Who dat?). I think I have definitely made strides in my self-confidence, both in my personality and in my professional life. What I want to still do is take more chances and risk more of myself. I think I wear my emotions a little too much on the outside, but I'm afraid to just let loose and be myself. I calculate my responses and then when my emotions take over, they dominate the situation. I do not want to be that person. Other than that, I'm happy with myself and where I am going. I think I deserve a muffin. | | |
| The other day, someone cut me off. And you know what I did? I cut him right back. Am I such a vengeful person? It occurred to me that I may be one who keeps a scoreboard on the people in his life. Some of us, like my boss and my mom, do not. They have infinite patience even when their employee-son has failed or hurt them many times over. Their compassion is an ever-pouring fountain. However, for the rest of us, I do not believe we are so forgiving. We are petty, we are rash. When someone cuts us off, we cut him off. When someone stabs our eye or chips our tooth, we stab her eye or chip his tooth. We track and tally, bite and claw. So if there is a scoreboard, then how do we keep score? I feel that when I say "Please" to someone, it puts me in a position of weakness. For me, perhaps it's so painful and I am so forgetful in saying it because I do not like the bitter taste of submission. However, I know that when someone says it to me, I am in a position of power. So when I say "Please" to someone, am I giving that person a point? If so, then I think a "Thank you" is a one-pointer. It levels the playing field. It's like bringing the ball back to half-court. We are balanced again and the power shifts back in the middle. But if "Thank you" is a one-pointer, then there is one phrase I believe to be a three-pointer: "I'm sorry." If "Please" drives a wall between people and "Thank you" paves the way, then I think "I'm sorry," builds a bridge. In all my life, rarely have I ever said "I'm sorry" to my mom or dad. No matter how much I hurt them, I have not found it in me to swallow my pride and utter the words. In fact, my friend told me the other day that he had once said something very hurtful to his mom. It somehow came up again several years later and she said that that was the only thing that he had done to hurt her. When he told her he was sorry, she bawled. How great is the pain we incur simply by failing to apologize for our actions. So tallying up my score, I would say I'm not doing so well. Over the course of 23 years, I have built a very high wall between my mom and myself, my dad and myself. I can hear the shot clock ticking down, so the question is, do I shoot or do I pass? | | |
| Have you ever been culture-dated before? You know what I'm talking about. You're having a really funny conversation with someone, and it's rolling along, when all of a sudden, you bring up Vanilla Ice's song and how it was such a sample and the other person says, "Who?" That's culture-dating. Or maybe you're a teacher and you tell your kids to write an essay on the greatest inventions of the 20th century. One kid (who needs to learn how to mind his own business) asks you to make some suggestions, and you suggest the Internet, and he says, "Didn't they always have Internet?" That's culture-dating. It's like carbon-dating, but with culture. You make a pop culture reference and all you see is a blank stare. You suggest a hit song and someone's nose wrinkles like you just laid one. You reminisce about a TV show and someone remembers seeing a cast member's out-of-work ass on "Dancing with the Stars." If you haven't been culture-dated, don't worry. You will. | | |
| I'm taking a page from Robyn's blog. She says titles like, "My Day at the Dentist," and "How I Spent My Winter Vacation," are not attractive enough, so I hope mine grabs your attention somewhat. In case that didn't, the subtitle is: The Apocalypse Is Coming and Its Name Is Standardization. Think about it. Barcodes. Oneness. Sameness. Gray suits. Women with hair buns. Dress codes. Lack of diversity. Mixing. Melting pot. Racial purity. Interchangeable parts. Franchising. Systemization. Everyone's unique. "Everyone's a super." Leveled playing fields. In the name of science. Why can't we all just get along? Be like me. Conformity. Non-conformist conformist. Just be. Fashion yes, fashion no. Fascism. Neo-Nazism. Hip-hop-rock. Pop-rap. Mixed race. Asian Fusion. Standardized testing. Certification. One size fits all. Bureaucracy. Specialization to the nth degree. Medical records in chips. Computerization. Mass production. We all fall down. | | |
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