(no subject)
It's so funny to me how thinking you are powerless really makes you feel that way. And then doing something like cleaning up your room and cleaning up your head and reading a good book can remind you that it's really not true at all. And that it's truly possible to be everything you wanted to be.
I have felt like ever since I started dating on the whole, I've been content with feeling like I just can't do certain things. Well, no, I haven't been content, I've been fearful and complacent. I also feel like I can't do certain things by myself, or without the permission of the person I'm with, regardless of whether I think that it'll make our lives easier.
An example that is both idiotic and significant:
We've been living in our house for a year and a half. I've told Sid for the entire time that we needed to get another shelf unit because my stuff was still in boxes. He would always say, "Okay okay whatever" and promptly forget about it, or say that he didn't think we needed it, or that he didn't really want to buy any more stuff that we'd have to move when we decide to get a new place.
What I should have done over a year ago is just buy some bloody shelves. But no, for some reason I felt like I needed Sid to be there with me, and that I couldn't do it all by myself. I also felt like, if he didn't think that getting the shelves was important, then my feeling like it's important is negated and I should just live with the fact that I still had two cardboard boxes of books on the floor gathering cat hair and forming piles.
A lot of times I forget that Sid is less experienced at life than I am in a lot of ways, and that when he doesn't think something I want is a wise decision, it usually has nothing to do with me emotionally. It's usually him thinking about money, or not wanting to be bothered with more work to do. It's usually because he's lazy and stubborn. He only wants to do what is in his little mental box of priorities.
Him refusing isn't a comment on the kind of person I am, and it's not about how strongly I feel about the situation. When I forget about this fact, I tend to think that what I want is not worth arguing about, even if it's only a two minute argument, and I find myself hating where I am and feeling worse about myself because I feel like it doesn't matter if I want something or not, because I end up feeling like want ultimately, is stupid, so why bother.
I'm not a stubborn person, and I also forget that not everyone is like me in that respect. Sid is stubborn, so often times, he will say he doesn't think something is a good idea simply because he is stubborn. A lot of times I feel like being stubborn is not worth it and I may end up regretting it. Or that I'll make other people mad and they won't like me anymore.
I think what I hadn't realized is that his stubbornness has a very negative impact on me and I get walked over if I'm not careful.
The past two weeks or so I have been more stubborn despite worrying that I'll feel guilty for it, and I've found, I don't feel guilty at all. I am much happier now that I have shelves, and now that our room is cleaner, and I feel more motivated to do other things that will be good for the both of us in that respect. I'm happy to cook more now that I'm getting more of what I want, more of the time. When I bought the shelves, Sid was more than happy to help build them so I could put my stuff on them. He just didn't want to bother getting them himself despite the fact that both our stuff will go on it and it's our room together.
Sid's even spent more time with me, and said he'd get me a haircut when I wanted it.
What prompted me to think about this stuff is the fact that I think this comes from my mom, and it makes me realize that she's lived her whole life with this kind of "powerlessness" attitude. I am not sure if it's a cultural thing, and if a lot of Puerto Rican or Latin women are like this, or if it's just her family or what. But I was remembering that when my Dad would do things to upset my mom, or when he would say, "No, we can't get this because that idea is stupid," and brow beat her, she wouldn't stand up for herself. She would do things like mis-match his socks and hide the shoes he wears to work every day or leave one arm of his shirt un-ironed. I spent a huge amount of my childhood telling my dad to stop yelling at my mom, and trying to explain what she wanted from him in a way that I felt like he would understand better. It used to make me really angry that I had to defend my mom in the first place.
My mom could never just say, "I want you to do this." It was always, "Okay, so we need to clean up the kitchen, and start with this and that," but "we" always meant me, and that worked because I understood that with her. But if my mom said that to my father, he had the choice of saying, "Okay that's fine" with "we" meaning everyone BUT my father. So he wouldn't do the things she asked and she would be crushed and feeling as I do a lot, like what she wanted was stupid and that's why my dad didn't do it. There were lots of times where my mom said she told my dad to get a birthday cake or something, where she said, "We need a cake. I think it should be one like this. Can you look for one on your way home?" And my dad would say, "I thought you were getting the cake, you just asked me to look at them," and my mom would feel like he was being intentionally difficult to hurt her. He was just being my dad and being a stubborn and lazy idiot who doesn't do anything unless he has to.
My mom wanted my dad to want to do things for her, but since he was stubborn and lazy, he wasn't going to do anything he didn't want unless he had to. My mom left herself open for disappointment over and over because she thought my dad would want to do chores and stuff to please her in addition to going to work and everything else. Who wants to do chores?
The only time I could get my mom to clarify what I was doing and what she was doing was if I said, "Okay, what in that list is what I personally am doing?" and she'd look at me like I was an idiot and tell me like she'd said it a hundred times. The fact of the matter was that my mom didn't feel like she had the power to truly get what she wanted from anyone, and saying all this, "we" bullshit was a way of asking and telling at the same time, and getting the person she was asking to "decide" to do what she wanted on their own.
"Hinting" as we women are known to do.
That "we" stuff has it's place, certainly. I use it a lot in teaching, saying things like, "We as singers need to breathe properly in order to for our voices to work properly. The steps of breathing properly are..." to unanimous success. The person I'm teaching considers themselves a singer, and since we are both singers, they will do the things that we as singers must do.
Otherwise, I have little faith in the we stuff in terms of relationships, unless I'm actually saying we need to do laundry together.
I guess this long rambly rant has just been a way of saying, thank god I figured out what I can do to make my life better and to feel more confident. And thank goodness it's actually helping my relationship.
Kids at school are also assholes who make me feel like shit daily, so hopefully I can pass some of this confidence to that situation too. I almost hate the majority of the kids at school and I'm so glad that I won't have to see the ones I dislike anymore after the next couple weeks are over.
Off to rehearsal I go! At least Mozart's Requiem is this weekend and I'm the Soprano Soloist! :)
P.S. Sid's mom has cancer. :( Please pray for her.
I have felt like ever since I started dating on the whole, I've been content with feeling like I just can't do certain things. Well, no, I haven't been content, I've been fearful and complacent. I also feel like I can't do certain things by myself, or without the permission of the person I'm with, regardless of whether I think that it'll make our lives easier.
An example that is both idiotic and significant:
We've been living in our house for a year and a half. I've told Sid for the entire time that we needed to get another shelf unit because my stuff was still in boxes. He would always say, "Okay okay whatever" and promptly forget about it, or say that he didn't think we needed it, or that he didn't really want to buy any more stuff that we'd have to move when we decide to get a new place.
What I should have done over a year ago is just buy some bloody shelves. But no, for some reason I felt like I needed Sid to be there with me, and that I couldn't do it all by myself. I also felt like, if he didn't think that getting the shelves was important, then my feeling like it's important is negated and I should just live with the fact that I still had two cardboard boxes of books on the floor gathering cat hair and forming piles.
A lot of times I forget that Sid is less experienced at life than I am in a lot of ways, and that when he doesn't think something I want is a wise decision, it usually has nothing to do with me emotionally. It's usually him thinking about money, or not wanting to be bothered with more work to do. It's usually because he's lazy and stubborn. He only wants to do what is in his little mental box of priorities.
Him refusing isn't a comment on the kind of person I am, and it's not about how strongly I feel about the situation. When I forget about this fact, I tend to think that what I want is not worth arguing about, even if it's only a two minute argument, and I find myself hating where I am and feeling worse about myself because I feel like it doesn't matter if I want something or not, because I end up feeling like want ultimately, is stupid, so why bother.
I'm not a stubborn person, and I also forget that not everyone is like me in that respect. Sid is stubborn, so often times, he will say he doesn't think something is a good idea simply because he is stubborn. A lot of times I feel like being stubborn is not worth it and I may end up regretting it. Or that I'll make other people mad and they won't like me anymore.
I think what I hadn't realized is that his stubbornness has a very negative impact on me and I get walked over if I'm not careful.
The past two weeks or so I have been more stubborn despite worrying that I'll feel guilty for it, and I've found, I don't feel guilty at all. I am much happier now that I have shelves, and now that our room is cleaner, and I feel more motivated to do other things that will be good for the both of us in that respect. I'm happy to cook more now that I'm getting more of what I want, more of the time. When I bought the shelves, Sid was more than happy to help build them so I could put my stuff on them. He just didn't want to bother getting them himself despite the fact that both our stuff will go on it and it's our room together.
Sid's even spent more time with me, and said he'd get me a haircut when I wanted it.
What prompted me to think about this stuff is the fact that I think this comes from my mom, and it makes me realize that she's lived her whole life with this kind of "powerlessness" attitude. I am not sure if it's a cultural thing, and if a lot of Puerto Rican or Latin women are like this, or if it's just her family or what. But I was remembering that when my Dad would do things to upset my mom, or when he would say, "No, we can't get this because that idea is stupid," and brow beat her, she wouldn't stand up for herself. She would do things like mis-match his socks and hide the shoes he wears to work every day or leave one arm of his shirt un-ironed. I spent a huge amount of my childhood telling my dad to stop yelling at my mom, and trying to explain what she wanted from him in a way that I felt like he would understand better. It used to make me really angry that I had to defend my mom in the first place.
My mom could never just say, "I want you to do this." It was always, "Okay, so we need to clean up the kitchen, and start with this and that," but "we" always meant me, and that worked because I understood that with her. But if my mom said that to my father, he had the choice of saying, "Okay that's fine" with "we" meaning everyone BUT my father. So he wouldn't do the things she asked and she would be crushed and feeling as I do a lot, like what she wanted was stupid and that's why my dad didn't do it. There were lots of times where my mom said she told my dad to get a birthday cake or something, where she said, "We need a cake. I think it should be one like this. Can you look for one on your way home?" And my dad would say, "I thought you were getting the cake, you just asked me to look at them," and my mom would feel like he was being intentionally difficult to hurt her. He was just being my dad and being a stubborn and lazy idiot who doesn't do anything unless he has to.
My mom wanted my dad to want to do things for her, but since he was stubborn and lazy, he wasn't going to do anything he didn't want unless he had to. My mom left herself open for disappointment over and over because she thought my dad would want to do chores and stuff to please her in addition to going to work and everything else. Who wants to do chores?
The only time I could get my mom to clarify what I was doing and what she was doing was if I said, "Okay, what in that list is what I personally am doing?" and she'd look at me like I was an idiot and tell me like she'd said it a hundred times. The fact of the matter was that my mom didn't feel like she had the power to truly get what she wanted from anyone, and saying all this, "we" bullshit was a way of asking and telling at the same time, and getting the person she was asking to "decide" to do what she wanted on their own.
"Hinting" as we women are known to do.
That "we" stuff has it's place, certainly. I use it a lot in teaching, saying things like, "We as singers need to breathe properly in order to for our voices to work properly. The steps of breathing properly are..." to unanimous success. The person I'm teaching considers themselves a singer, and since we are both singers, they will do the things that we as singers must do.
Otherwise, I have little faith in the we stuff in terms of relationships, unless I'm actually saying we need to do laundry together.
I guess this long rambly rant has just been a way of saying, thank god I figured out what I can do to make my life better and to feel more confident. And thank goodness it's actually helping my relationship.
Kids at school are also assholes who make me feel like shit daily, so hopefully I can pass some of this confidence to that situation too. I almost hate the majority of the kids at school and I'm so glad that I won't have to see the ones I dislike anymore after the next couple weeks are over.
Off to rehearsal I go! At least Mozart's Requiem is this weekend and I'm the Soprano Soloist! :)
P.S. Sid's mom has cancer. :( Please pray for her.