Some Additional Thoughts

So after having a few conversations with beloveds I think that I need to write a bit of a follow up blog to Pinching Things.

Firstly, like my darling Alfi in Impromptu so boldly declared, “ART DOES NOT APOLOGIZE”. So I shant. Those feelings are and were real. I don’t deny any of it, however, and this is a problem with blogs I think, that was just a snap shot of a bad day and quite a lesser portion of my entire emotional landscape. A painting is far more than the shading on noses and postures of patrons. It’s a whole composition and so am I.

I think, in background to that piece, I want to clarify that I am a very empathetic. I take on the emotional make up of people around me. Most times I don’t find the talent very convenient but I tune in to people very quickly and on very primal levels. It makes me a good friend, a resource at church dances and quite fun to chat with in large crowds, however, sharing a very small apartment with a wonderful and totally well intentioned, but emotional and hormonal new mother can sometimes make volcanoes out of steam burns.

Two, I feel compelled to declare how truly amazing my sister in law is. I felt like I kind of painted her on the insensitive/condescending side. That is not the case. I adore her. I am a very different person from her but we’ve come from two totally different worlds that share a similar vernacular so why wouldn’t we be different people. Those two weeks were so intense it seriously felt like I was on the mission with a missionary companion again. Spending 24/7 with someone is quite a task, especially in a demi-crisis.

Three, I want to just say that I’m sure her father is a good man too. I’ve met him on a few occasions and he didn’t come across as any kind of tyrant or abusive type. We all say careless things sometimes, careless hurtful things. I know I have and I’m lucky enough to have constructive and loving people around me to gently nudge me in a more positive direction. Some people don’t. Some people make reckless mistakes parenting. I’m fairly sure I will and my kids will have to grow and mature in spite of me sometimes instead of aided by me. Parenting is a messy scary thing, of which, truthfully, I only have a loose academic understanding.

I have my ideals too that I’m married to on the matter, along with other things that I use to bludgeon others and myself. I know this is unfair and I recognize it even when I’m in the thoroughs of whatever huff and puff I’m about at the moment. But what’s interesting to me is that even though I recognize it, my irrational commitment to those ideals trumps whatever prudence or caution I should apply to the matter.

Do you remember that MormonAd with a school hallway full of people with brown paper bags on their heads with different identities written on them like “Nerd”, “Cheerleader”, “Looser” etc and the caption said “Labels Hide People”. I think ideals function a bit in the same way. However, I still think they’re necessary for living a principled life.

I suppose like everything else it’s a matter of balance and charitable looks at things on a case by case basis.

However, I’m quite imperfect and my empathetic nature, compiled with my marriage to my ideals all complicated and multiplied by my justice seeking self sometimes gives way to emotional tirades about things I can’t control.

Also, I want to say, being able to relax here in this cozy tearoom in SLC and feeling quite myself and absent from any hormonal swings, that I do NOT think men are mindless size 2 loving simpletons. Men and their dispositions are as varied as women’s and are attracted to a number of things, like women, and have their preferences, just like women. Accusing half of the species of something and denying them anything but animalistic credit because it doesn’t fit MY ideas of how things should be/are (read: how I am) is quite silly and flat out unfair. I should apologize for that and I do. I’m not a shallow female who wants some millionaire football player and not all men are cheerleader chasers. Speaking in absolutes is dangerous and its easy to hurt people doing so. That is not and never was my end.

Working out being blindsided by grief and frustration was. That’s all.

I love you guys. ALL you guys. I really really do.