A Diliema In Triplicate (An Interpersonal Saga)
So, Tuck returns from his digital social exile once more, and once more it's because he has a seemingly insurmountable problem, and seeks a solution. And often, the good people of the Internet has solutions for those problems, so I'll open it up to the convened minds of greatness that are you all, my various friends. So, what follows is my interpretation of the various events, and what I see as the problems of those events, so that the great Internet mind may consider this, and offer constructive ideas on how to make this well again.
Also...as I write this, I am going to be as vague as possible. This is because I don't want who I'm discussing to take harm from what I have to say. However, I know damn well that when any of the three people who I discuss read this, they'll know exactly who they are. That is acceptable - perhaps having them read this will create some headway. Who knows?
So, disclaimers aside, here's are the problems as I see it. I have three friends who are directly involved in this conflict - let's be poetic about them, and call them Able The Wounded, Cain The Angered, and Lilith The Unbound. A few months ago, Able discovered that he and the love of his life were going to have a child. Able was very excited about it - I remember the phone call well. Despite all the clear trials that he would have to face as a father, he was as ready as he could be, and was set to tell everyone he could about the good news.
So, Lilith is one of Able's dearest friends, and so he, with joy in his heart, shared the exciting news with her. He expected her to be excited to...perhaps a little concerned, at the very most.
Things did not proceed as planned.
Lilith panicked, and spent the next half-hour pacing, and while with fright. She was terrified that Able has told her this, because now, Able's life was over.
It is here that I discuss a little bit about what I see in Lilith that is troubling this conflict. Lilith is a wonderful young woman, but she has learned some very...disheartening, shall we say, lessons in her life. She has learned that children are not the beginning of life, but the end. She has learned that the fetus is a parasite, that consumes the life of it's mother, and doesn't stop doing so when the child leaves the womb. Children, she has learned, do not enhance, improve or continue life - they destroy it. Furthermore, her life's challenges have not allowed her to properly taste and test adulthood, as most young women of her age might. As a result, she has moments of deep childhood - when she discourses, she alternates between begin a young woman her age, and being a middle teenager, an age beneath her actual time on Earth. Some call her painfully immature...from what I know of the situation, she's a late bloomer. It happens - I didn't get to feeling like an adult until the past year or so. It is in all of this that I see one third of the same problem that Lilith, Cain and Able all have - fear of being abandoned. In Lilith, it comes from two sources. One, it comes from her beliefs about children. Imagine, for a moment, that a very good friend, a sibling perhaps, comes up to you and tells you that he has incurable cancer. Imagine knowing that the person you love is going to die in just a few short months, and that you'll lose them forever. Now, imagine being told that the person will spend those months in excruciating pain, and that this disease will not only kill one of your freinds, but two of them. Now, imagine that, where they go after death, is worse than your image of hell. Now you understand how Lilith feels about children, and two of her closest friends having one. Imagine the pain and the utter mindfuck that this would give you.
Combine that with the fact that, for so many years, Lilith has seen nearly everyone close to her leave. Her home life is complicated, and in living that life, she has learned not to get close to anyone, bacause as soon as you love them, they are driven away. No one will stay by your side, because no one will consider staying. Everyone leaves, and you are always forced to say goodbye. Combine that developed fear of saying goodbye to everyone you she loves, mix in how she views children, and you now begin to see the abandonment issues in Lilith. Keep these in mind, because the theme will continue.
Anymatter...I won't postulate on where she learned these lessons and why she is as she is. I may disagree with her ideas on children, but I disagree with a lot of things. At present, these beliefs are as deeply ingrained into her as Freedom of Choice is ingrained into the American psyche. There is no pulling apart the two - they are one in the same.
So, after panicking for a half-hour, Able finally snapped, and told her to shape up, or get the fuck out of his house. She calmed down quickly, but soon left. She proceeded directly to the home of Cain, with whom they shared a best friend - the love of Cain's life was also Lilith's best friend. It is here that Lilith panicked further. Luckily, Cain's lover soothed her friend, and was able to get her functioning rationally again.
It took several weeks for Lilith to be able to spend any time with Able and his love again, which wounded Able rather deeply...after all, one of his dearest friends had just told him that he was dooming all his hope and dreams, despite the fact that many of his hopes and dreams were invested in having a child. But she did, and for a time, things were good again.
And then fate struck a second time, slighting to the left of where it struck the first time. Suddenly, Cain discovered himself soon to be a father. And like Able, he was overjoyed, but for entirely different reasons.
Now we learn a little bit about Cain. Cain has lived a very full, but very hard life for a young man of his age. Before completing his teenage years, both of his parents had passed away, leaving Cain an orphan. Cain is a man of strong character, and though devastated by this terrible fortune, it has not caused him to falter on the path of life. In fact, in many ways, it has forged him into the kind man his is now. However, as a result of this, Cain has longed to rebuilt a biological family. Part of this is due to the various estrangements that he has experienced with his siblings. Part of that is because he longs to feel like he has a family again. And with his closest friends as aunts and uncles, he eagerly looked forward to starting that family...which was just now beginning.
And again, we see the base of a fear of abandonment, this time in Cain. Think on your life. Now, if you have had the luck to know your parents, and you've had the luck to have both of them care deeply for you, think on that. Now, think if, as you are making the terrible journey that is the teenager years, that both of those people die. Those supports that held you up are gone. You, at an age you may not be ready for, must stand on your own. And your siblings, the people who usually you'd stand with, aren't as present as you might need. Maybe they are there a little...maybe not at all. Now, imagine growing up, beliving that you have no family, and trying to build a new one. This is where Cain's troubles exist, and why he has nearly uncontrolled joy over his coming child. Once, he lived with no family. Now, he will have the joy of growing a new family, with his closest friends around him. And in thise desire, we see why he will act as he acts lalter in our story.
Back to the tale, and Cain and the love of his life's joy. Unfortunately, that joy was not undinted. For months, many people did not know about this new family. While preparing themselves psychologically for the grand task of parenting, Cain and the love of his life didn't at all discuss discuss the matter with her parents, who they foresaw responding poorly to the matter. But more importantly to our story here, they didn't discuss it with Lilith - after all, she'd most recently had her panic regarding Able's child, and neither Cain nor his love wanted to face that discomforture.
So months passed. Cain and his love hid their child from Lilith. Able was annoyed with this, because he belived Lilith to be a mature young woman, how may have much to learn of life, but could handle and be happy about this matter. After all, she'd come to be happy about his child, right?
And again, things didn't go as planned.
Just under a week again, Lilith found out about Cain's child. And as Able thought, she didn't handle it like she handled it before.
Instead, it was worse.
Lilith was beside herself. She was sobbing uncontrollably, absolutely shattered. Again, she broached on her beliefs concerning children's place in the universe. And she went one step further - she told two, soon to be happy parents that she couldn't be happy for them. And while the matter was quietly handled (due to a performance they all had to perform in just minutes), it seemed mostly resolved.
Until Lilith posted her thoughts online. In her post, she talk about how angry she was that Cain and his love had gotten pregnant, and ruined their lives. She declared that she could never forgive them for what they had done to her by deciding to make their family. She declared how confused she was that Cain's love would submit to the parasite in her body, and allow the foul creature to live. And probably most painful, was her declaration that, in time she might love "it", she could never forgive it for what it had done by coming into her friends' lives, and destroying them utterly, and that she refused to hide her feelings any more. It was in this that Lilith became The Unbounded, revealing her true thoughts with seemingly little concern for how they'd be seen
The first person in our story to read this was Able. And here, we learn about Able's fear...a fear with less tragedy than Cain or Lilith's, but no less real. Able, as a very young child, has dealt with the pain of being an adopted child. There was a lot of joy and luck in his adoption - the woman that Able would call Mom was directly related to his biological mother. Able's Birth Mother had always loved Able's Mom, and thought that Able's Dad was really amazing as well. and knowing that this child would have an amazing life with people, she gave Able to them. But in this gift, there laid a double edged sword. A young Able wondered first had to cope with the fact that the woman he loved did not give him birth. He then had to wonder why he'd been cast away...was he not loved? Why would someone want to get rid of him? This fear later matured in him as an adult, and the question became would someone get rid of him...as Able aged, animosity had grown between Able's Mom and his Birth Mother, and Able was disallowed to have both of them in his life. From what he saw, Able's Mom hated his Birth Mother, and hated everything having to do with her. So when Able reconnected with his Birth Mother, who had always been a dear friend, a new fear arose. Would his Mom, a woman he loved fiercely, and who had helped make him who he is today, throw him away, like he'd never stopped feeling his Birth Mother had? And while all of this occured, and Able was trying to avoid his fear, he lived a relationship with a woman who threatened to throw him away every day of their five years together. For his fear, he crushed his confidence, his pride, and his creativity, so that she wouldn't throw him away too.
Imagine the person you love most. Imagine how much you care for them, and how wonderful it is to know that they love you. Now imagine being gottten rid of by that person - cast aside, like yesterday's garbage. Imagine that fear ruling your every word, your every thought. Now imagine trying to live with that fear of being discarded, and you'll see through Able's eyes. It is this reason that Able builds the bonds of family whereever he goes...because he longs to know, without a bit of fear or doubt, that he is indeed loved, and will never be cast out of his home.
And you'll see why Able was crushed by Lilith's words. Able saw in Lilith what he'd seen in the woman he'd once loved. He took a different path with Lilith, and took her as a friend, and he cherished that friendship. But in a moment, he feared for that friendship...because he'd chosen to become a happy parent. How could he reconcile being thrown away again, all because he'd soon be a father? How could such joy bring such pain? Able wept, and wondered..."I thought we were a family. Why is Lilith going to push us away?" It is thus that Able is The Wounded, aching that the family he hoped to share with his friends was shattered, instead of being joyful.
In his pain, Able shared Lilith's post with Cain. And it is in this that Cain became The Angered. Cain was enraged - after all, he'd always believed that Lilith would be one of the closest people to his child, and the family he was making. Despite all her faults, Cain was ready to make her closer than any of his blood relatives had ever been before...and this was her repayment? She'd "never forgive" Cain and his love for bring joy to their lives? It was utter and complete foolishness, and suddenly, Cain didn't want much to do with Lilith anymore.
And that's how what was once family seemed broken, and where I seem to come into this entire saga.
Able, who is a very close friend of mine, shared with me all of this, and asked me for help. Knowing all three - Lilith, Cain and Able - I pondered why they were all in pain. And to be honest, the reason that they are all afraid and in pain right now is the same - they don't want to be abandoned again. But instead of all seeing that fear together, they deal with it apart. None will open up fully, and none will allow the others to help with their fear. It's a sad irony, that the thing they fear most is what will bring them together. But knowing this doesn't give me the strength or knowledge to know how to bring them back together.
Able doesn't know what's become of all of this. He's heard from neither Cain, who works three jobs to prepare for his coming child, nor Lilith, who seems to be actively avoiding him. So I don't know if Cain and Lilith have experienced any resolution. But I see Able in pain, and I felt the need to tell this story, and interviene. I might be a mistake of me to do so, but I've stayed quiet about the whole thing long enough. I want this family of friends to be reunited, and to begin loving each other again. I fear they can never do so in the way the did before...before the waters seemed so untainted. But I think there must be some way to make this well again...I'd love to offer some sage advice to Able, because the whole thing has left him in a mess.
So...great minds of the Internets - what do you think about this? How does this great conflict get resolved?
Also...as I write this, I am going to be as vague as possible. This is because I don't want who I'm discussing to take harm from what I have to say. However, I know damn well that when any of the three people who I discuss read this, they'll know exactly who they are. That is acceptable - perhaps having them read this will create some headway. Who knows?
So, disclaimers aside, here's are the problems as I see it. I have three friends who are directly involved in this conflict - let's be poetic about them, and call them Able The Wounded, Cain The Angered, and Lilith The Unbound. A few months ago, Able discovered that he and the love of his life were going to have a child. Able was very excited about it - I remember the phone call well. Despite all the clear trials that he would have to face as a father, he was as ready as he could be, and was set to tell everyone he could about the good news.
So, Lilith is one of Able's dearest friends, and so he, with joy in his heart, shared the exciting news with her. He expected her to be excited to...perhaps a little concerned, at the very most.
Things did not proceed as planned.
Lilith panicked, and spent the next half-hour pacing, and while with fright. She was terrified that Able has told her this, because now, Able's life was over.
It is here that I discuss a little bit about what I see in Lilith that is troubling this conflict. Lilith is a wonderful young woman, but she has learned some very...disheartening, shall we say, lessons in her life. She has learned that children are not the beginning of life, but the end. She has learned that the fetus is a parasite, that consumes the life of it's mother, and doesn't stop doing so when the child leaves the womb. Children, she has learned, do not enhance, improve or continue life - they destroy it. Furthermore, her life's challenges have not allowed her to properly taste and test adulthood, as most young women of her age might. As a result, she has moments of deep childhood - when she discourses, she alternates between begin a young woman her age, and being a middle teenager, an age beneath her actual time on Earth. Some call her painfully immature...from what I know of the situation, she's a late bloomer. It happens - I didn't get to feeling like an adult until the past year or so. It is in all of this that I see one third of the same problem that Lilith, Cain and Able all have - fear of being abandoned. In Lilith, it comes from two sources. One, it comes from her beliefs about children. Imagine, for a moment, that a very good friend, a sibling perhaps, comes up to you and tells you that he has incurable cancer. Imagine knowing that the person you love is going to die in just a few short months, and that you'll lose them forever. Now, imagine being told that the person will spend those months in excruciating pain, and that this disease will not only kill one of your freinds, but two of them. Now, imagine that, where they go after death, is worse than your image of hell. Now you understand how Lilith feels about children, and two of her closest friends having one. Imagine the pain and the utter mindfuck that this would give you.
Combine that with the fact that, for so many years, Lilith has seen nearly everyone close to her leave. Her home life is complicated, and in living that life, she has learned not to get close to anyone, bacause as soon as you love them, they are driven away. No one will stay by your side, because no one will consider staying. Everyone leaves, and you are always forced to say goodbye. Combine that developed fear of saying goodbye to everyone you she loves, mix in how she views children, and you now begin to see the abandonment issues in Lilith. Keep these in mind, because the theme will continue.
Anymatter...I won't postulate on where she learned these lessons and why she is as she is. I may disagree with her ideas on children, but I disagree with a lot of things. At present, these beliefs are as deeply ingrained into her as Freedom of Choice is ingrained into the American psyche. There is no pulling apart the two - they are one in the same.
So, after panicking for a half-hour, Able finally snapped, and told her to shape up, or get the fuck out of his house. She calmed down quickly, but soon left. She proceeded directly to the home of Cain, with whom they shared a best friend - the love of Cain's life was also Lilith's best friend. It is here that Lilith panicked further. Luckily, Cain's lover soothed her friend, and was able to get her functioning rationally again.
It took several weeks for Lilith to be able to spend any time with Able and his love again, which wounded Able rather deeply...after all, one of his dearest friends had just told him that he was dooming all his hope and dreams, despite the fact that many of his hopes and dreams were invested in having a child. But she did, and for a time, things were good again.
And then fate struck a second time, slighting to the left of where it struck the first time. Suddenly, Cain discovered himself soon to be a father. And like Able, he was overjoyed, but for entirely different reasons.
Now we learn a little bit about Cain. Cain has lived a very full, but very hard life for a young man of his age. Before completing his teenage years, both of his parents had passed away, leaving Cain an orphan. Cain is a man of strong character, and though devastated by this terrible fortune, it has not caused him to falter on the path of life. In fact, in many ways, it has forged him into the kind man his is now. However, as a result of this, Cain has longed to rebuilt a biological family. Part of this is due to the various estrangements that he has experienced with his siblings. Part of that is because he longs to feel like he has a family again. And with his closest friends as aunts and uncles, he eagerly looked forward to starting that family...which was just now beginning.
And again, we see the base of a fear of abandonment, this time in Cain. Think on your life. Now, if you have had the luck to know your parents, and you've had the luck to have both of them care deeply for you, think on that. Now, think if, as you are making the terrible journey that is the teenager years, that both of those people die. Those supports that held you up are gone. You, at an age you may not be ready for, must stand on your own. And your siblings, the people who usually you'd stand with, aren't as present as you might need. Maybe they are there a little...maybe not at all. Now, imagine growing up, beliving that you have no family, and trying to build a new one. This is where Cain's troubles exist, and why he has nearly uncontrolled joy over his coming child. Once, he lived with no family. Now, he will have the joy of growing a new family, with his closest friends around him. And in thise desire, we see why he will act as he acts lalter in our story.
Back to the tale, and Cain and the love of his life's joy. Unfortunately, that joy was not undinted. For months, many people did not know about this new family. While preparing themselves psychologically for the grand task of parenting, Cain and the love of his life didn't at all discuss discuss the matter with her parents, who they foresaw responding poorly to the matter. But more importantly to our story here, they didn't discuss it with Lilith - after all, she'd most recently had her panic regarding Able's child, and neither Cain nor his love wanted to face that discomforture.
So months passed. Cain and his love hid their child from Lilith. Able was annoyed with this, because he belived Lilith to be a mature young woman, how may have much to learn of life, but could handle and be happy about this matter. After all, she'd come to be happy about his child, right?
And again, things didn't go as planned.
Just under a week again, Lilith found out about Cain's child. And as Able thought, she didn't handle it like she handled it before.
Instead, it was worse.
Lilith was beside herself. She was sobbing uncontrollably, absolutely shattered. Again, she broached on her beliefs concerning children's place in the universe. And she went one step further - she told two, soon to be happy parents that she couldn't be happy for them. And while the matter was quietly handled (due to a performance they all had to perform in just minutes), it seemed mostly resolved.
Until Lilith posted her thoughts online. In her post, she talk about how angry she was that Cain and his love had gotten pregnant, and ruined their lives. She declared that she could never forgive them for what they had done to her by deciding to make their family. She declared how confused she was that Cain's love would submit to the parasite in her body, and allow the foul creature to live. And probably most painful, was her declaration that, in time she might love "it", she could never forgive it for what it had done by coming into her friends' lives, and destroying them utterly, and that she refused to hide her feelings any more. It was in this that Lilith became The Unbounded, revealing her true thoughts with seemingly little concern for how they'd be seen
The first person in our story to read this was Able. And here, we learn about Able's fear...a fear with less tragedy than Cain or Lilith's, but no less real. Able, as a very young child, has dealt with the pain of being an adopted child. There was a lot of joy and luck in his adoption - the woman that Able would call Mom was directly related to his biological mother. Able's Birth Mother had always loved Able's Mom, and thought that Able's Dad was really amazing as well. and knowing that this child would have an amazing life with people, she gave Able to them. But in this gift, there laid a double edged sword. A young Able wondered first had to cope with the fact that the woman he loved did not give him birth. He then had to wonder why he'd been cast away...was he not loved? Why would someone want to get rid of him? This fear later matured in him as an adult, and the question became would someone get rid of him...as Able aged, animosity had grown between Able's Mom and his Birth Mother, and Able was disallowed to have both of them in his life. From what he saw, Able's Mom hated his Birth Mother, and hated everything having to do with her. So when Able reconnected with his Birth Mother, who had always been a dear friend, a new fear arose. Would his Mom, a woman he loved fiercely, and who had helped make him who he is today, throw him away, like he'd never stopped feeling his Birth Mother had? And while all of this occured, and Able was trying to avoid his fear, he lived a relationship with a woman who threatened to throw him away every day of their five years together. For his fear, he crushed his confidence, his pride, and his creativity, so that she wouldn't throw him away too.
Imagine the person you love most. Imagine how much you care for them, and how wonderful it is to know that they love you. Now imagine being gottten rid of by that person - cast aside, like yesterday's garbage. Imagine that fear ruling your every word, your every thought. Now imagine trying to live with that fear of being discarded, and you'll see through Able's eyes. It is this reason that Able builds the bonds of family whereever he goes...because he longs to know, without a bit of fear or doubt, that he is indeed loved, and will never be cast out of his home.
And you'll see why Able was crushed by Lilith's words. Able saw in Lilith what he'd seen in the woman he'd once loved. He took a different path with Lilith, and took her as a friend, and he cherished that friendship. But in a moment, he feared for that friendship...because he'd chosen to become a happy parent. How could he reconcile being thrown away again, all because he'd soon be a father? How could such joy bring such pain? Able wept, and wondered..."I thought we were a family. Why is Lilith going to push us away?" It is thus that Able is The Wounded, aching that the family he hoped to share with his friends was shattered, instead of being joyful.
In his pain, Able shared Lilith's post with Cain. And it is in this that Cain became The Angered. Cain was enraged - after all, he'd always believed that Lilith would be one of the closest people to his child, and the family he was making. Despite all her faults, Cain was ready to make her closer than any of his blood relatives had ever been before...and this was her repayment? She'd "never forgive" Cain and his love for bring joy to their lives? It was utter and complete foolishness, and suddenly, Cain didn't want much to do with Lilith anymore.
And that's how what was once family seemed broken, and where I seem to come into this entire saga.
Able, who is a very close friend of mine, shared with me all of this, and asked me for help. Knowing all three - Lilith, Cain and Able - I pondered why they were all in pain. And to be honest, the reason that they are all afraid and in pain right now is the same - they don't want to be abandoned again. But instead of all seeing that fear together, they deal with it apart. None will open up fully, and none will allow the others to help with their fear. It's a sad irony, that the thing they fear most is what will bring them together. But knowing this doesn't give me the strength or knowledge to know how to bring them back together.
Able doesn't know what's become of all of this. He's heard from neither Cain, who works three jobs to prepare for his coming child, nor Lilith, who seems to be actively avoiding him. So I don't know if Cain and Lilith have experienced any resolution. But I see Able in pain, and I felt the need to tell this story, and interviene. I might be a mistake of me to do so, but I've stayed quiet about the whole thing long enough. I want this family of friends to be reunited, and to begin loving each other again. I fear they can never do so in the way the did before...before the waters seemed so untainted. But I think there must be some way to make this well again...I'd love to offer some sage advice to Able, because the whole thing has left him in a mess.
So...great minds of the Internets - what do you think about this? How does this great conflict get resolved?