Controlling

A friend of mine just called in tears because she was just dumped by a friend who told her she was oversensitive and controlling. He told her, "If you don't want to be friends with me anymore, I could care less." This came as a total shocker because you won't meet a quieter, seemingly docile, kind-natured man.

What precipitated this confrontation was a incident involving a volleyball team they are both on. She is the captain and she notified the team via e-mail to be at the courts 15 minutes before the game to warm up. He and another teammate was already there playing a game with some other people when she arrived and were just wrapping up a game. They started playing another game and she got upset because he didn't ask her to play with them....she was expecting he'd stop and come to another court to warm up with his team. When she let him know this, he said, "We're already warmed up." Knowing her, she probably was in captain mode and came across as ordering him to come warm up with them.

Apparently, she was cross and upset during the match and they lost, and, according to her, so was he. She called me that night saying how upset and pissed she was.

She couldn't take it any longer, so she called him and let him know that he had hurt her feelings by "excluding" her, and he was very blunt and angry, telling her that she always blows things out of proportion, she doesn't "own" him, and that he was sick of it. To my knowledge, it was their first fight, but he's heard her complain about other people who have, in her mind, mistreated her. I guess he was of the mindset I'm in: when will I be the target of her insecurity and sky-high expectations?

You know....I'm on the fence with this one. She IS an extremely sensitive person whose feelings are hurt quite easily. One by one, her friends and lovers are dropping away, put off by her confrontations that they have hurt her feelings. I'm about the only one left, and I feel the dependency growing. I can actually see it coming: she's going to expect me to do something or act a certain way in the interest of "friendship," and if I don't deliver, she will confront me and tell me that that isn't the way friends should act. She is a very high-maintenance friend.

Perhaps she and I are friends because I see much of myself in her. I'm sensitive as well, and when someone hurts my feelings, I have to let it be known eventually. Sometimes it's been met with compassion; other times it's been met with anger and defensiveness. What I have over her, hopefully, is that I try to see where the other person is coming from and change accordingly. Generally, my sensitivity is directed to lovers, whereas everyone in Beth's life may feel like they're walking on eggshells around her.

So, I suppose that my friendship with her is not necessarily for a season or a lifetime, but for a reason: I can see how her extreme sensitivity drives people away from her when what she wants is for them to draw closer. Where is the line drawn? I don't think her friend handled it well at all, to be honest, but I suppose that he felt it just wasn't worth the aggravation of being her emotional caretaker?

Just a thought,
OB

Packrats

Dad's "Office," where he displays his own unique way to manage utter chaos.

I spent the weekend at my parents' house. I hadn't visited them since Christmas. Each time I go home, I am flabbergasted at how much stuff keeps piling up in that house. They've been there since 1974, so it's to be expected that stuff would accumulate. But they don't throw ANYTHING away.

For example, when I was home for Christmas, my dad was going through boxes that were pulled from the attic to make room for a renovation. He comes downstairs with this pink taffeta prom dress I wore in 10th grade, as well as a black New Romantic-style jacket (same one Nick Rhodes is wearing on the cover of the second issue of Duran Duran's first album). Both are covered in mildew stains and God-knows-what-else....rat crap? Insulation?

Our three-stall barn, complete with hayloft, which used to board horses and now boards groundhogs and family relics.

Dad marches into the den holding the items up and says with a smile, "Look what I found in the basment? Do you want it?" I said, "Goodness no. They're out of style, stained, and I couldn't fit an ankle into them, much less my butt. Why would I want them?" He said, "I thought you might want them for the memories. I'll set them aside for a yard sale or for Goodwill." Ummm...what on earth makes him think anyone would pay money to have these items? I told him to throw them away, but the next day, I saw them tossed into a box in the basement.

The hallway in the "Hannibal Lector" basement

That's my Dad for you. Classic Depression era. He can't throw anything away, but he spends copious amounts of time moving it around from room to room in futile hope that the piles of junk will will somehow get smaller and more manageable. Every time I go home it's a true trip down memory lane. I'll find a coat I wore when I was six years old, back issues of Bop magazine with Duran Duran or on the cover or Fangoria magazine, pillowcases full of old notes I passed in class...it's always fun to navigate my memories when I go home, but the sheer volume of stuff in their house makes me claustrophobic and makes me wonder if my parents have that "pack-rat" disorder that's been making news lately.

Blessed Beyond Measure

Forgive me for waxing sentimental, but gimme a break. It's the holidays and there's so much going on, it can be hard to step back and look at what's making your life crazy to begin with.

Within 24 hours of being laid off from my full-time job of 4 1/2 years, I had enough freelance work to get me through the rest of the year. Within a week, I had hired another writer to pick up the slack!

I just had a Christmas party where around 30 people attended....almost all of whom I consider very close friends, and many of whom I've known for many, many years. One I met my junior year in high school in Kentucky. He moved to Charleston about two years before I did, and it was because of a visit there that I decided I could "make it" away from Kentucky. There were several friends who I met during grad school. All of them traveled anywhere from 1 1/2 to three hours to attend my party. And there were several new friends I've made within the past year who have become so close to me that it's difficult to imagine my life before they came into it.

While my life has its share of sticky moments (see "Inner Child Run Amuck" and "Family Drama" entries), I can't really say I have many complaints. I have a lovely home in a great city (not without its problems, but it could be MUCH worse), and a busy life full of activities, friends, and countless opportunities to grow and improve myself.

I am blessed beyond measure!
OB

Family Drama

On Tuesday, my brother came to Mom asking her for $5,000. She asked why, and he refused to tell her but said it was extremely important and urgent. She told him she couldn't give him that much money without consulting Dad first.

So, in a bold move, my brother went to my dad's office and did the same song and dance. My mom was surprised that he'd do this because there had been so much hostility between him and Dad that he declared he'd never ask Dad for another thing as long as he lived. So this was rather unexpected that he'd go to Dad's office.

Dad gave him the money with virtually no questions asked. Dad DID say that he wants himto "get help," and David said he would.

Within an hour, my brother was gone. He sent Mom an e-mail later that day saying that he was OK but that he would be out of contact for the next several days. He sent her an e-mail on Sunday saying he's going back to China because that's what "God" is telling him to do.

I can't tell you how pissed I am over this! I don't know who I'd rather choke: my brother for manipulating my parents out of $5,000 or Dad for giving it to him! I told Mom that Dad passed up a golden opportunity to lay down the gauntlet with my brother and insist that he wouldn't see a slim dime without getting help first.

My brother is holding my parents hostage with their weakness yet again. He purposefully made my parents believe he was in some kind of trouble and played on my parents' fear that their child was in some sort of peril that they needed to rescue him from. I don't know why on earth they feel so powerless as parents. I mean, they're single-handedly supporting their 42-year-old, mentally unstable, unemployable son....seems to me they're in about as perfect position as they could be in to make an ultimatum: force him to get help or have cut him off. But they fear that if they don't acquiesce to his wishes, he'll leave anyway and walk the streets broke. The way I see it, it's better for him to be homeless in Kentucky with no financial means to leave than giving him the money to go back to Asia and wind up broke there with no one to go to if he does encounter trouble!

I told Mom that I wasn't sure I could go home for Christmas unless this whole thing is resolved. The second Dad gave him the money, he regretted it (just like he did when he gave my sister's then-husband $10K for a Christmas tree lot that funded their heroin habit, or when my brother lied about needing money for a trip to see my grandparents in OK and wound up broke in Alaska and needing a very expensive last-minute flight home).

I told Mom that if I went home and Dad started bitching about the $5K, I wouldn't be able to control myself and would have to speak my mind about it, which would do no good at all. I don't want Dad to feel worse than he already does. But I'm so bleedin' mad at both of them! I asked for far less than that from them to put down enough on my condo to avoid PMI....and I was going to pay them back! But they couldn't because, "We're still recovering from the $10,000 we gave your sister's ex-husband for the Christmas tree lot." That was over 10 years ago!

So, of course, they feel guilty for again funding the ineptitude of one child while another one is trying to make her own way in the world with no handouts. I don't want them to feel guilty because I don't expect anything at all from them. But it seems to me that's the way they prefer it: to let their children bleed them dry, act like martyrs, and then feel guilty about it. I just don't want to have any part in it.

Whew...I feel better!
OB