If you don’t know who the “mark” is at the table, it’s you.
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Sometimes I just can't let go of old annoyances. I wish I could. I wish I could find the magic key to make them go away.
I just got some walnuts out of the bag in the refrigerator. When I put the bag back, I twisted the tie once holding the bag, then flipped the bag to put a second twist in, and that was it. It was one of those very long ties reused off some other bag.
As I put the bag back, I felt an immediate flash of annoyance at Ex#2.
He used to twist the ties all the way out to the end! It didn't matter how long the twist tie was, he twisted it all the way! I'd get extremely annoyed when I had to untwist forty thousand times just to get a slice of bread. I explained over and over to him that two twists were sufficient to keep a tie tight. It made no difference to him. Next time, he'd twist all the way to the end again.
I can't seem to let go of it.
The trigger for my flash of annoyance at him was the twist tie, but I suspect the real problem was that he ignored what I said, what I asked of him. My words had no weight with him, and the twist tie was just an example of that.
I'm tired of having those flashes.
A psychologist might say that I am still annoyed at him because I am still feeling ignored in my current life, but that I can't put it on the current source, so I'm putting it on him. But I'm not sure that's true, because all the flashes that went back to Ex#1 stopped as soon as I discovered he died a while ago. He died, and things stopped triggering annoyance at him. All the triggers stopped being triggers. So maybe if Ex#2 died, I'd stop being annoyed at him over the twist ties.
Maybe what I'm really looking for is an apology. Or validation. Maybe what I really want is for Ex#2 to say to me, "You know, you were right about the twist ties." (Or any of a hundred other things....) But I know he's still twisting the damn things forty thousand times, and that's incredibly annoying.
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3 comments:
I think I would concoct a fantasy in which he was on a conveyor belt moving toward a buzz saw aimed at his crotch, his legs pinned by twist ties all twisted to the end. Then I would feel better.
I know just how you feel. It would be very convenient if Xman died in the near future.
I find it interesting that the fact that he had to twist that tie that many times makes (assuming he was not doing it just to irritate you, since he'd been doing it since before you asked him not to) him wrong and you right. I wonder if in his head, two times wasn't sufficient enough? That two times was wrong and a twisty tie has all of that length for a reason? (of course, in my mind I reason that out to being able to twisty tie larger/more full things. My oldest son cannot twist tie any thing, so this fascinates me. I keep trying to roll up my boys toothpaste tube, and that drives him insane. He does not want me doing that. In his mind that's wrong, but in my mind it makes perfect sense.
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