Tuesday - Coming Clean
May. 22nd, 2007 04:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreSince I wrote about Kellie last week - her life, death, and funeral – I have been carrying around a burden that I have to unload. A lot of people expressed sorrow over my loss, and it seemed ungracious not to thank them for their sympathy. To set the record straight, Kellie was the wife of an old friend. I admired her a lot, and I feel a lot of sympathy for her husband and children. I have a confession to make, though – I didn't like her very much. Admiration and affection are not the same.
Kellie and I were always polite, but cool, toward each. We met in our teens through a mutual friend I will call Tara. It is because of Tara that I never warmed up to Kellie.
Tara was a couple years my junior. She went to school with my best friend, Macy, and our families all attended the same church. When Macy and I were 14 and Tara was 12, we became friends with her. She was a lovable and exuberant girl. She was the only kid I knew whose parents were even older than mine. She was a surprise that came along when they were in their 40's, the daughter they thought they's never have, and they spoiled her rotten. Since her mother and father had a hard time telling her no, Tara tended to have a hard time telling herself no, either.
Tara's amazing innocence was by far her sweetest attribute. We enjoyed shocking her, making her jaw drop open when she gasped, "No! Oh my God, I don't believe you!" in awe. She was a little bossy, but because she was so sweet it was cute and we forgave her. Since Tara's innocence made her so adorable that Macy and I went out of our ways to keep her that way. When Tara got an idea in her head that we instinctively knew wasn't in her best interest, we distracted her with another idea. We weren't protecting her from the outside world so much as we were protecting her from herself. She needed this more than most people.
My deep affection for Tara solidified when my mother died. A lot of people said they were sorry, which was nice. Others told me my mother was in a better place and that she wasn't suffering any more, which didn't help me because I wanted her in this place and resented that she ever suffered at all. Tara, though, said something that took me by surprise and shocked me out of my grief for a moment.
"I heard about your mom," she told me, "I love you."
It was the first time in my life I ever heard these words from someone who was not a blood relative. I was so stunned that all I could do was stammer, "Thank you. Ditto!" I was still hurting and I was still a child without a mother, but her words put a little something solid back under my feet. At my mother's funeral she gave me a gift, a stuffed toy puppy dog, that I clung to and that rode with me from the funeral home to the grave site, and all the way back home again. I still have it.
Friends don't speak the words I love you out loud to each other very much in American culture. We talk about romantic love a lot, but the deep and profound love of friendship is usually just assumed and hoped for. At the right time, though, it's nice to not have to assume. In your darkest hour, it's nice to have someone tell you what you always suspected.
When Tara was 15 or 16 she started hanging around Kellie and her group of friends. These new acquaintances didn't know Tara all that well, certainly not well enough to know or care that she lacked any instinct to know when "enough" crossed the line into "too far." Besides, Kellie was of tough Louisiana Cajun stock. I have yet to meet a weak or vulnerable Cajun, and it seems to me that most Cajuns consider anyone who is weak or vulnerable to just not be trying hard enough. As a Cajun, Kellie's attitude could be summed up as Suck it up, buttercup. This is not to say she was cruel. She wasn't. She just saw no need to coddle anyone.
After a short time, Tara changed. When she was innocent and sweet, her bossiness and pouting were cute. When she was getting high and sleeping around, these traits just seemed bitchy. What was soft about her turned hard, and what was once kind in her turned vicious. She went from being everyone's kid sister to the sort of girl that one of the guys and our group sneered about and said, "Man I wouldn't even touch her if I were using someone else's dick."
Her friends, old and new, fell away from her. I must have said something to Tara about not liking the person she was turning into, because the last thing I heard she said about me was that was a hypocrite and a bitch. To call me both of those names, I take it to mean she disliked me twice as much as I disliked her: I said only one thing against her, and it wasn't that she was a hypocrite.
I never warmed up to Kellie, even if what happened to Tara was not exactly her fault. Innocence is only meant to be a temporary state. Eventually Tara was destined to venture away from people willing to protect her and step out into the world at large where she would be the victim of her own inability to see understand when she had gone too far. She didn't even understand that she could go too far. But Kellie opened the door that Macy and I held shut for so long. Kellie liked Tara, but she didn't know her well enough to love her and protect her.
Admiration and affection – both in it's manifestations of love and like – are very different. A person earns our admiration, and I will always admire Kellie for fighting the good fight and for being a good person, wife, and mother. Love is affection's deep and unconditional form. I will always love Tara for loving me and telling me so when I needed it the most. Like, though, comes with strings attached: we either enjoy someone's company, or we don't. When I found I no longer liked and could not respect Tara, we went our separate ways. I suspect she never looked back.
The loss of Tara's friendship meant that despite my great admiration, I never let myself like Kellie. This is not a slight against her memory, only a reflection of my own tendency to hold a grudge for longer than I should. I suppose it's no big deal. Even if Kellie suspected why I was so cool toward her, I don't think it would have bothered her. She would just told me to suck it up and get over it. I have to admit this is pretty good advice to heed about bygones I will never be able change.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Kellie and I were always polite, but cool, toward each. We met in our teens through a mutual friend I will call Tara. It is because of Tara that I never warmed up to Kellie.
Tara was a couple years my junior. She went to school with my best friend, Macy, and our families all attended the same church. When Macy and I were 14 and Tara was 12, we became friends with her. She was a lovable and exuberant girl. She was the only kid I knew whose parents were even older than mine. She was a surprise that came along when they were in their 40's, the daughter they thought they's never have, and they spoiled her rotten. Since her mother and father had a hard time telling her no, Tara tended to have a hard time telling herself no, either.
Tara's amazing innocence was by far her sweetest attribute. We enjoyed shocking her, making her jaw drop open when she gasped, "No! Oh my God, I don't believe you!" in awe. She was a little bossy, but because she was so sweet it was cute and we forgave her. Since Tara's innocence made her so adorable that Macy and I went out of our ways to keep her that way. When Tara got an idea in her head that we instinctively knew wasn't in her best interest, we distracted her with another idea. We weren't protecting her from the outside world so much as we were protecting her from herself. She needed this more than most people.
My deep affection for Tara solidified when my mother died. A lot of people said they were sorry, which was nice. Others told me my mother was in a better place and that she wasn't suffering any more, which didn't help me because I wanted her in this place and resented that she ever suffered at all. Tara, though, said something that took me by surprise and shocked me out of my grief for a moment.
"I heard about your mom," she told me, "I love you."
It was the first time in my life I ever heard these words from someone who was not a blood relative. I was so stunned that all I could do was stammer, "Thank you. Ditto!" I was still hurting and I was still a child without a mother, but her words put a little something solid back under my feet. At my mother's funeral she gave me a gift, a stuffed toy puppy dog, that I clung to and that rode with me from the funeral home to the grave site, and all the way back home again. I still have it.
Friends don't speak the words I love you out loud to each other very much in American culture. We talk about romantic love a lot, but the deep and profound love of friendship is usually just assumed and hoped for. At the right time, though, it's nice to not have to assume. In your darkest hour, it's nice to have someone tell you what you always suspected.
When Tara was 15 or 16 she started hanging around Kellie and her group of friends. These new acquaintances didn't know Tara all that well, certainly not well enough to know or care that she lacked any instinct to know when "enough" crossed the line into "too far." Besides, Kellie was of tough Louisiana Cajun stock. I have yet to meet a weak or vulnerable Cajun, and it seems to me that most Cajuns consider anyone who is weak or vulnerable to just not be trying hard enough. As a Cajun, Kellie's attitude could be summed up as Suck it up, buttercup. This is not to say she was cruel. She wasn't. She just saw no need to coddle anyone.
After a short time, Tara changed. When she was innocent and sweet, her bossiness and pouting were cute. When she was getting high and sleeping around, these traits just seemed bitchy. What was soft about her turned hard, and what was once kind in her turned vicious. She went from being everyone's kid sister to the sort of girl that one of the guys and our group sneered about and said, "Man I wouldn't even touch her if I were using someone else's dick."
Her friends, old and new, fell away from her. I must have said something to Tara about not liking the person she was turning into, because the last thing I heard she said about me was that was a hypocrite and a bitch. To call me both of those names, I take it to mean she disliked me twice as much as I disliked her: I said only one thing against her, and it wasn't that she was a hypocrite.
I never warmed up to Kellie, even if what happened to Tara was not exactly her fault. Innocence is only meant to be a temporary state. Eventually Tara was destined to venture away from people willing to protect her and step out into the world at large where she would be the victim of her own inability to see understand when she had gone too far. She didn't even understand that she could go too far. But Kellie opened the door that Macy and I held shut for so long. Kellie liked Tara, but she didn't know her well enough to love her and protect her.
Admiration and affection – both in it's manifestations of love and like – are very different. A person earns our admiration, and I will always admire Kellie for fighting the good fight and for being a good person, wife, and mother. Love is affection's deep and unconditional form. I will always love Tara for loving me and telling me so when I needed it the most. Like, though, comes with strings attached: we either enjoy someone's company, or we don't. When I found I no longer liked and could not respect Tara, we went our separate ways. I suspect she never looked back.
The loss of Tara's friendship meant that despite my great admiration, I never let myself like Kellie. This is not a slight against her memory, only a reflection of my own tendency to hold a grudge for longer than I should. I suppose it's no big deal. Even if Kellie suspected why I was so cool toward her, I don't think it would have bothered her. She would just told me to suck it up and get over it. I have to admit this is pretty good advice to heed about bygones I will never be able change.
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