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3(continued)
Electric toothbrushes are the most amazing and unattractive invention ever. I let the paste slobber drip down my lip into the sink before looking up into the mirror....and then I stopped.
I looked at the person staring back. I compared her to myself and wondered if this really was the same woman. I tried to see what others saw. Kellie, Jeff, my brother...
then I tried to see ME.
She had the same hair, eyes and mouth. But when I saw her smile I saw the person that was seen only by others.
Someone, I think it was Wilde, once said, "One's real life often is the life that one leads."
In this case that was true. No one knew really who I was. Maybe my brother was right and that was my own fault. Maybe I had been controlling how people saw me and perceived me. But that was going to change. It was inevitable. I couldn't stop it now, even if I wanted to.
(to be continued)
2. Mind Control
(continued from 1.)
I let my mind wander as I sat in traffic inching closer to home at the roaring rate of one car-length per hour.
My mind stuck on my growing feelings of being visible but not present. Shortly after Kellie had left my office Jeff, my boss, had come in for his usual daily update. He asked how my time away was and how I was doing getting back to work. Most people might find that a refreshing thing, a boss that shows interest in your life. You might think I'd feel the same, but it annoyed me. It's not that Jeff didn't care, it was that he did it for the APPEARANCE of caring. He always made a point of knowing at least one thing about each of his staff so he could SEEM involved. It further demonstrated how much he did NOT know about me...He had asked me the same thing everyday for the past week.
I had opted to hide out in my car to call my brother during lunch. In the midst of our usual topics of conversation; his bitching about his wife, me bitching about my job, I complained about my feelings of being unseen and unknown. He was silent for a moment.
"You know you kind of set yourself up for that" He said it hesitantly, waiting for the defensive onslaught that might follow. I knew this so I sucked it back.
"How is that?" I asked through an only slightly clenched jaw.
"You always have to control everything" He continued. "You let everyone else do the talking and you facilitate. It's like giving the impression that your relationship is two sided when really it's not."
I chewed on it. It's like my own version of mind control.
To be Continued....
1. So Much Drama
"You are NOT going to believe what happened last night!"I felt my eyes begin to roll and quickly sucked back the long-suffering sigh that pushed it's way up from the depths of my chest. I turned to Kellie with a smile on my face and responded with the appropriate enthusiasm.
"Really? Tell me." I pushed the words out through my grinning teeth.
I felt a twinge of guilt at my annoyance with Kellie's constant need to purge her drama in my office. She was a nice girl just getting into her own at the age of 32 after coming out of a long controlling marriage. She just needed a safe place to land.
Maybe if it was just Kellie I wouldn't have felt this way. But it wasn't just Kellie. I seemed to have this neon sign above me, the neon arrow pointing down reading "Safe Haven". Everyone felt they could come and unload their problems, get feedback, and leave a little lighter. It had been this way all my life.
I continued to nod and smile as Kellie talked.
I used to not mind. I enjoyed helping people especially those I cared about, but some changes in my own life made me realize that all of this was a bit one sided. I was surprised after being gone for three weeks that on coming back no one asked where I was or how I was. They just waited for their turn to tell me what was going on with them. Did anyone even know ME?
Kellie jumped up and hugged me, "Thank you so much for listening. I'll let you get back to work! See you on lunch" and she skipped out of the room.
I sighed. I hadn't heard a word she said.
1. (To be continued)
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Playdough
"I hate playdough" she spat. I watched her turn the little plastic container over into her hand, the neon colored dough falling into her hand.
"Playdough is just a false sense of control that we let kids feel before it's taken away" She continued as she began to kneed it in between her fingers. I continued going through my own box but watch fascinated that despite the stated hate for the pasty little wad, she continued to form and shape it into a small jar. I watched her face as a tear slipped from beneath her lash and rolled down her cheek to fall into the little neon jar.
Violently she wadded it up and pitched it across the room where it slammed into the wall and stuck there. I watched her, wide-eyed for a moment. She looked at me, her face flushed and eyes wet with the remaining tears she wouldn't let go of. Suddenly she chuckled. She laughed. And I laughed with her. We laughed till we cried.
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That Door
I never looked at that door. It stood closed and locked somewhere in the background.
I knew it was there but refrained from acknowledging it.
Until it was too hard to not open it. And when I did...it was as if a new light shined.
Justified
"Why did you do it?" She asked him after the long bout of uncomfortable silence. She waited while he took a breath. And then he told her reasons. They were long and they were lengthy. He gave her reasons for reasons as she sat there quietly taking in his every word and processing it in her head.
As he spoke his voice gained strength and began to take a cutting edge as he lined out his case backing up his actions. Finally, he finished talking and sat back, arms crossed, with a smug look waiting to see what she would come back with.
She sat silently for a moment. Her face had lost the pained look it had earlier. She nodded, "I see." Then she sat for a moment and then again, "I see, but..." she raised her eyebrow, "do you have a JUSTIFIED reason?"
He opened his mouth to fire back a summary of what he had just outlined...and then closed it. He tried again after a pause, but he came up with nothing.
"My point exactly." She said as she rose and walked away.
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