2009-08-02

Shaking the waterglass.

I listened to a woman talking today about the elaborate "revenge fantasies" that sometimes went on in her mind, and I laughed out loud -- almost barked, really -- in one of those staccato outbursts of recognition. It's one of the things I truly enjoy about being a recovering addict, as insane as that sounds. Nothing levels the playing field more than hearing someone with whom you wouldn't think you had anything in common say EXACTLY what goes on in your own head.

This woman was talking about how far she gets into these scenarios, snapping out of it and realizing that she's red in the face. I get it. I've been there. When I wasn't trying to sustain a prolonged chemical commercial break from the dull horror of broken promises and unrealized ambitions that my actual life had become, I was also managing to do a bangup job of creating all kinds of shows in my head, which ran the gamut from delightful sitcoms to turgid miniseries...or worse yet, Lifetime movies starring JoBeth Williams as every person I had a resentment against.

And I STILL do this. I'll sit and come up with scathing retorts that I "should have said" 4 hours ago when someone made some perceived slight at my person. I find myself either sitting waist deep in 25 years ago, or telling my own fortune.

So this woman was talking about how angry she felt all the time, and how she just didn't see how she was going to shake it, and I thought about something I read by Thich Nhat Hanh:

Suppose you are in the desert and you only have one glass of muddy water. You have to transform the muddy water into clear water to drink, you cannot just throw it away. So you let it settle for a while, and clear water will appear.

This is all well and good, except that I have this tendency to feel myself getting nice and settled, only to start fuming again. And then the houseboy tells me: "Honey? You're shaking the waterglass."

I wanted to run after this woman today and tell her this, but then I saw myself babbling away about muddy water and JoBeth Williams and having her think that I was just crazier than a rat in a coffee can. Another mental YouTube moment brought to you by alcoholism!

Hopefully if I see her next week I'll be able to talk to her, without a script.

lisamcc at 4:21 p.m.



1 comments so far
Lynette
2009-08-03 01:50:25
Oh you KNOW I've had some twisted revenge fantasies since 2007. And you know I still wrestle with them. I love the water glass visual. I'll keep that in mind. But in the mean time, there's still a certain someone that will star as the recipient of all my day dream pain.
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