The Sweetness of Symmetry; The Successful Sidestepping of Poisonings

This morning started with accidental weak coffee and an intentionally stale doughnut. I did a do-over with the coffee but when I bit into the doughnut that I had brought home with me from work yesterday in my bag, I tasted and realized that a bottle of cologne must have leaked in my bag.

So here I am, just before 8:30 in the morning, drinking strong coffee in an attempt to rinse the flavor of a cake doughnut soaked in bergamot with undertones of possibly patchouli from my mouth.

Good morning.


The past few days have proved to be both inspiring and challenging.

Let me pull over and talk about, historically and in the past, being the stone emotional butch in a disproportionate number of my friendships and relationships. Stone emotional butch happens when people perceive you as strong and, so relieved to have finally found such a strong person who can obviously handle the knocks of life, will want to unload - in an unending and unreciprocated manner - the depths of their sadnesses, difficulties, relationships with their families/wives/workplaces/bosses onto you because they know you can handle it. This is also, at times, mixed with a somewhat never ending desire, in that child like way, to forever feel that they are the center of said mommy/daddy's world.

It's a kind of West End Girl Syndrome. You are perceived as being built for them.  For this very purpose.  You can handle it.

[We've got no future, we've got no past
Here today, built to last
In every city, in every nation
From Lake Geneva to the Finland station
(How far have you been?)]

(pause)

I don't buy into it much these days/years.

It's fine that I am perceived as strong. I am strong. That's a point of pride, I suppose.  That I'm not a big baby padding around. But I also threw the dynamic of being everyone's emotional daddy and mommy out a while back.

There have been quite a few tantrums, of course. People having melt downs because they don't know how to handle it when I set limits to how much of their demands or emotional boiling-overs I feel good about showing up for. How much of their brattiness or expectations of me as a source of support and attention when what they offer me in return is, well, more of the same brattiness and expectation. It's just not something I'm into these years. And so, situations either have to change, or they have to be faded out.

All in all, it feels good. It has felt good over the past, I'd say four years or so, to be sweeping off the proverbial front porch to my home.   To make room for and cultivate the loving vines that surround me. (I've always pictured the people I'm thinking about as plants.  Big, thick, green, lush plants that intertwine with each other and surround me.  Plants that are seemingly delicate, yet, together and in their fed mass, can take down entire buildings.)

That's all for today.  Just thinking on this as I clear the last bit of that pastry mishap from my palate while the doughnut with one bite missing remains unfinished on my plate, acting as an air freshener.



Be well; be loved; be loved well.


Be conscious of what you choose to keep and what is better left alone after you get a taste for it.


k.

(image: Esther Quek)