kethrai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not on my watch. A friend of mine is in a bit of a scrambly situation right now. I won't violate their privacy by even hinting at it, but it did get me thinking...and I wondered... what would you and what would you not do for another? I think I have some sense of what my limits are. As women, we are not often taught to have "boundaries". We're taught to never say NO directly, to excuse ourselves and leave everyone feeling good. And as a result, we seem to often get into disasters-- the date rape, the extra project at work, the overbearing mother who can't be told off properly. Usually, attaining boundaries is the result of (often painful) experience. You kinda have to trip over the fence, is what I'm driving at. The boundaries that I have learned range all over the place. I will never again permit a lover to compare me unfavorably to another in bed. I do not permit myself to be dominated. I will not, under any circumstances, ever again, beg. Ever. On the other hand, there are things that you can take me for. In some directions, I will forever be a sucker, a patsy, a soft touch. No one around me will ever go hungry ever again. It sounds pretty basic and attainable, isn't it? This is America, and I am clearly far from homeless--I have this computer, after all. I'm posting on the goddamn internet. There's no need for anyone to actually, for-sure, little-Ethiopian-child-with-big-eyes STARVE around me. One summer, when still with the Evil Ex, when I was home from college working and he was still up in College Town, not, he starved. Almost literally. He wasn't bringing in money, wasn't paying his rent, was living on one half-pack of ramen and one cup of tea a day. He didn't tell me. Even on summer retail wages, I could have sent him a care package of rice and beans, or something. At the end of the summer, I went back to school to be confronted by a 150-lb skeleton that bore a vauge resemblance to the 180-lb. boyfriend I'd left in May. His skin was wierdly yellowish with vitamin deprivation and his eyes all but rattled in his skull. He wasn't so big a man that 30 lbs made no difference. I have no doubt, in retrospect, that some of it was calculated for effect. He was a depressive who was deliberately staying off his medication because he preferred people to take care of him. His father lived 6 miles away, and certainly would not have let his son starve to death. And he could have written to me, and I would have sent him money or food. So a certain amount of it, I'm sure, was the hubris of suffering. "See how badly I did!" But still. And yet. But I will never forget the horror of being confronted with that sight at the beginning of fall. No. One. Will. Ever. Starve. Around. Me. Again. We kid in my family about the sense of hospitality that we all have. You don't make it out the door without SOMETHING, in either my mother's, my sister's, or my houses. I know it's not exactly PC, but at the very least, you get the glass of water and a "sure you don't want anything else?" schpiel. It's part of Hospitality. Which as you know, dear NSR, is sacred to me and mine. Oh, I've learned to be harsh as I've grown older. I have a certain lack of patience with certain kinds of soap-opera situations, and when folks Younger Than Me have their relationship or parent or friend woes, I sympathise, I do, but there is some part of my head that is also thinking "Dude, time to hit the brakes. It's not the end of the world." There's some sort of stopping point within me that refuses to let me drown in hysteria when it comes to a lot of what folks consider the "human experience". Even in the depths of my own histrionics, there's always been that voice (you know the one) that says "Didn't you get this out of your system when you were fifteen?" But still. And yet. If it takes the last bone in my body. If it takes the last dime out of my hand. If it strips out my last muscle. If I starve myself. If I have to steal. If I have to lie. No one will go hungry around me, ever again. And then I wonder. Hunger comes in a lot of colors. 11:16 p.m. - 2002-11-08 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||