Resolved in their irresoluteness

I came home this evening and visited with my Grandmother.  We talked about our days and I made myself something to eat and then plopped down on the couch opposite her.  "Look at you being able to eat whenever you want to," she said.  "I thought of making some coleslaw and then thought, no, I can't do that it's only 4 o'clock!" Upon realization of such a ludicrous statement we both laughed and shook our heads.  I said, "Grandma, you make your coleslaw and you have some wine with it too!" She got up right then and said "that sounds good" and set out to make her favorite snack.

My sassy, eighty-six year old Grandmother is not the only one set in her stubborn rules.  I don't think there's anyone who can honestly say their days aren't defined by the Should's in their life.  Everything from the pastry we shouldn't have at Starbucks to the topics we shouldn't discuss with our friends to the way we shouldn't run until after we feed the dog.  Why, oh why oh why, do we force all these rules on ourselves? Rules that serve entirely no purpose except to serve as rules.

I must eat dinner after 530. Why? Because I must.

I must tolerate the way I'm being treated. Why? Because that's what I do.

Half the time we don't even know why we do what we do, we just do it because we do.  I wanted to put a flyer on the fridge for my play a couple months ago and Grandma said I couldn't put anything on the fridge.  Then she stopped and had to think if she did that because it was her rule or because it was something Grandpa had never wanted.  We both laughed over the fact that such a rule had become so ingrained she couldn't even remember who set the rule in the first place.

I confronted someone once on her long time friendship of condescension with a girl who seemed to often verbally mistreat her. "Well, we're like sisters," she rationalized.  "That's just how she's always been." But when I pointed out that this friend doesn't mistreat any of her other friends in such a way it seemed almost impossible for her to fathom that she'd ever treat her differently. "What if the next time she talked to you like that you told her 'enough, don't talk to me that way'" I suggested. Radical notion. We accept what others offer us because we think that must be what we deserve. If someone treats us a certain way, we must have provoked such behavior out of them.

That work flirtation that got out of line? Clearly your fault for being so friendly in the first place. Never mind their perversion in distorting the facts, they never would have offered you an indecent proposal if you hadn't batted your eyes in their direction. And your verbally abusive lover? Oh, they would never talk to you like that if you'd just mind what they say, doing all they ask and anticipating all they might ask.  You foolish thing, you.  Clearly people aren't responsible for their own actions.  You get what's coming to you.  That's all their is to it.

Oh, hold the phone.

You see, dear heart, you are not in fact responsible for the neurosis of others so STOP HEARING IT. People who don't treat you lovingly don't love you. Love does not manifest itself in tears and slander and deceiving manipulation. Time well spent is time with those who delight in you. Everyone else can just be your facebook friend. And you can oh so easily ignore their pestering I.M.'s.