right | Unmotherly Insights

I'm telling you, I was here first!

I didn’t kill anyone. This is what I’m choosing to focus on at the moment. I’ve come to realize that life is all about perspective. So I’m committed to having a positive one on my most recent mishap.

I had my bi-annual melanoma check-up this week. (Btw, in case you’re a grammarian, I am consciously choosing to keep the “m” word in lower case in order to illustrate it’s powerlessness and insignificance.) Good news though. I’m eight years free of the despicable disease that claimed my father’s life 11 years ago. Feeling relieved and almost invincible, I carefully pulled my tank out of its tight parking spot while being ever so careful not to hit the tree on the rear passenger side. I almost succeeded until I inadvertently clipped a poor unsuspecting Acura on the front driver’s side and dislodged its bumper completely.

I have to admit, I wanted to drive away and pretend the whole thing never happened. But alas, that’s never an option for an uber-responsible neurotic like myself. After scribbling out four versions of an apology note, I finally settled on one and placed it on the crippled car’s windshield.

A few hours later I received a call from the owner, we’ll call him John. He sounded worried and distraught. “This isn’t a tragedy,” I told him. “It’s just an inconvenience. I’m really sorry. But we’ll make it right.”

In the time between leaving the note and talking to John, I’d received a barrage of feedback from friends and family:

“Why did you admit guilt in writing? You should never do that.”
“Did you take photos? I hope you took photos.”
“You really should have called the police. What were you thinking?”
“You’re in big trouble. This guy’s gonna take you to the cleaners.”
“Did you forget all about the Brett MIchael’s affair?”

I should probably explain that last one. About a year and a half ago I was in a minor fender bender with the Rocker’s now wife. There was no damage but in attempting to do the right thing, I insisted she take my name and information. A few hours later, all kinds of vehicle issues emerged that required several thousand dollars worth of repairs. It was a nightmare. And one that I brought upon myself by trying to do the “right” thing. I suddenly shuddered thinking I’d done it all over again.

But after speaking with,John, I realized that he had likely received similar admonitions about trusting an anonymous stranger who was promising to make things right. We were both navigating in unsafe waters. Welcome to America, where doing the right thing is terrifying because it turns you into a potential target for every scammer, swindler and con artist out to ease their own economic woes by taking advantage of yours. It’s really pathetic.

I remembered how my dad used to make business deals with handshakes. Most of the time they went well. The few times they didn’t weren’t enough to sour my dad on the human race. He kept believing in people and trusting what they said.

I guess that’s kind of where I net out on all this. Sure, I could get screwed. The guy could claim everything from a busted carburetor to a bruised hip bone (which would really be incredible since he wasn’t even in the car.) Weirder things than this have actually plagued us these last few years.

But John seems like an honest guy. So I’m gonna trust him and try to repair the damage I inadvertently did. You can’t walk around protecting yourself from everything. Sure, you might get burned once in a while. But I’d rather spend my energy believing in the goodness of the human spirit, even if you have to shake off a few charred ashes now and again.

The Supermom action figure: She does everything, but nothing well

…selfish, self righteous, wrong, scared, intimidated, unworthy, alone, untethered. I don’t like to stand up for myself.

Funny, I spent years working as an anti-bullying trainer to teach students and teachers to stand up for themselves. I’m finally facing my own ugly truth. I can’t do it for myself. I can’t even return things I buy that I ultimately decide I don’t want.

I’m not kidding. I never take anything back. I throw out moldy Trader Joe’s produce. I donate defective electronic equipment with tags still intact. I won’t even return clothes that don’t fit me.

I’ve made progress lately though. And I owe it all to Zappos. Somehow the anonymity of mail order allows me to order heaps of different foot wear options and, through an ardent process of desensitization, I’ve conditioned myself to send back every pair that doesn’t suit me. This is a big step in the right direction (pun intended.)

The problem isn’t knowing where I stand. I stand up for myself plenty, in private. I even know I’m right most of the time. I just lack the capacity to share that information with anyone else for fear that I may upset or disappoint them. So I opt instead for always being wrong. I’m so neurotically aware of every tiny thing I do wrong and I focus on it until it seems like I just don’t ever do anything right.

I remember the first time I learned that being self-deprecating could work in your favor. I was 7 or 8 and I’d done something minimally wrong at my grandparents house. I worked myself into a frenzy, crying hysterically, nearly hyper-ventilating. Then I ran into the dining room, where the grown-ups were enjoying the final tasty morsels of sour cream cake and coffee, and I told them all what a horrible, worthless cretin I was. I explained that I’d done something so heinous I could never be forgiven, that saying I’m sorry would be an absurdly insufficient act. They stared at me, jaws down to their knees. “Come now,” they each began, “nothing could be that terrible. Surely we can make this better. Just tell us what happened.” It was fairly a no-brainer. The harder I was on myself, the easier the rest of the world was on me.

I don’t think I did it consciously. But from that point on, I rode myself hard. Anything short of perfection necessitated a staunch personal rebuke. I was merciless. If I got a B on a test, I was an imbecile and banished myself to my room to study for hours on end. If I left my sack lunch at home, I deserved not to eat (for several days). If I disappointed my parents, I’d pack my little suitcase and honestly convince myself that I needed to leave in order to save my family from any additional horror and disappointment. (I remember doing that once or twice in the beginning of my marriage. It didn’t go over well with my husband.)

The sad thing is is that I am now a middle-aged woman, still living in this ancient model of self-reproach. I still cannot tolerate disappointing anyone. I used to stay in relationships forever because I couldn’t bear to be the one to end something and hurt someone else’s feelings. I remember going on a first date with this man who told me he’d recently left a relationship. I asked him, in all sincerity, if his ex knew about his departure or if it was still sort of unclear. He thought I was insane. I couldn’t really explain that I’d ended many relationships in my mind only to get home to my apartment and find dozens of sunflowers or roses and a card thanking me for being such a committed, loving partner.

It’s like the fear of disappointing anyone is my prime motivating factor in life. That’s not healthy. That’s why no matter what I do for my family, I chide myself that it’s not enough. If I force myself to spend a day doing mindless, depressing domestic duties, all I can see is the myriad of other tasks I’ll never manage to get to. When I spend money, I chastise myself for spending too much. When I crave attention from my husband, I berate my status as needy, dependent housemate. When I devote all of my energy to creative tasks that fulfill my soul, I feel guilty and evil that I’m not there for my kids. I basically have created a lose- lose situation in every arena of my life.

Being able to consciously see this pattern is kind of amazing for me, and baffling. Why would someone do this to themselves? Find themselves so faulty and guilt-ridden over every choice they make, they end up wildly pinging like a pinball between selfish needy people who continually ask for more and are never satisfied. The more I give, the more people want and the more I see how I’m always falling short of meeting their needs.

Yikes, this is way more revealing than I ever intended. Guess I was wrong to share it.