Eccentric Flower:199911/The right thing is wrong

You may or may not have been wondering what happened to me.

Well, I had Jette as a houseguest and we've been running around doing all sorts of tourism and shopping-type things for several days, but that's not really an excuse - I mean, Jette managed to post an entry from here; she's been using my computer more than I have.

Truth is, I have had some things I wanted to say and I wasn't able to say them. In fact, I'm still not able to say them, not directly. It's one of the few sore points about this online journal business.

If I were keeping a journal privately, I would be able to say anything I wanted about anyone. I wouldn't have to worry about people seeing it and getting the wrong impression, or worse, people seeing it and getting the right impression.

Keeping my thoughts in a public place usually isn't a problem - I generally manage to say what I want to say - except where it concerns my friends. And this week, for various reasons, I've wanted to write about my friends a lot. Not always nasty things, but not always complimentary, either. Ruthlessly honest, you might say.

Banning people - "if you know me in person, don't read my journal" - is not a solution. What if I meet one of you nice Aether people? Now that I've met Kymm and Lisa, to name two at random, and I consider them friends, does that mean they can't read this anymore?

So. I will do what I usually do, which is to try to gently say the things I want to say without annoying the hell out of the people who are important to me. I do that enough already, sometimes voluntarily.

I would rather choose my battles, and have people get annoyed at me only when I intend for them to get annoyed!

I don't like Thanksgiving, as a rule. Perhaps it's because I'm not patriotic or perhaps it's because I don't believe in setting aside a single day to count one's blessings or perhaps just because I don't like eating a meal in the company of a lot of other people - which is what the last two Thanksgivings have been.

Thanksgiving was not a big holiday in my family; usually it was just my mother, my sister, and me, sometimes with my grandfather. At Thanksgiving each of the households held their own; it was Christmas when everyone would assemble together around the groaning board.

For this reason I was dreading Thanksgiving this year. I was also dreading it because there were some others present whom I like, but am frequently at odds with; one person present whom I took an instant dislike to on first sight and have never bothered to know better; and several present whom I didn't know at all.

Eric, who was the host for this dinner, might argue that Thanksgiving is a great time to meet strangers. (Then again, he might not.) Personally, my optimal situation for meeting a new person is when only three people are present - you, the other person, and a go-between who already knows you both. Not around a table for fourteen. I have trouble holding a conversation at all with thirteen other people in the room.

Actually, when thirteen other people are in the room, most of my concentration goes toward controlling my impulse to flee. I'm sure several of the others there noticed that I spent a lot of time upstairs, hiding. That's an improvement over my first impulse, which was to not come at all.

And yet -

I sat next to Eric at dinner. Thanksgiving is very important to Eric; it inspires strong emotions in him. Watching him as he revelled in the glow of the food and the company, I realized that if my presence could contribute some small part of that glow, then it was worth attending. I don't think my being around really brightens a room much, but seeing Eric's reaction made me feel both guilty - that I was in hiding for so much of the evening - and sad that I couldn't seem to get the same joy out of the gathering that he could.

It's just too scary. No, no, none of the people there were scary in and of themselves (well, except for the one I dislike); it was the combined effect. After dinner, I went back upstairs and hid some more, even though I felt guilty about it. If I'd been downstairs I'd have been a nervous wreck, pacing tensely between rooms, floating from conversation to conversation, never lingering in any. I don't know how other people do it.

I don't want to make this sound like a horrid Thanksgiving. The food was great and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. (My primary worry was that Jette, as the out-of-town guest, would be ill at ease, but she had a lovely time.) Heck, I enjoyed myself too; I just didn't participate much.

Given the above angst, I'm not sure I'm entitled to make comments about Patrick's mental flagellations ... but, goodness ... it's hard to resist.

For the record, Patrick was more talkative this time around than on either of my previous two sightings - that's a good thing - and we all enjoyed his presence, and he seemed to enjoy ours. I am not allowed to speak for Marc, but given Marc's behavior during the evening - and I can read Marc like a book, albeit one where the pages are sometimes printed in invisible ink - I would have to say that the Hideous Awful Thing theory has limited validity.

I may have seemed a little cranky by the end of the night on Saturday, as he was leaving - but that wasn't aimed at him or anyone; it was me getting tired of having other humans around. That's never personal; it just means that after several hours around people, I need an hour or two alone to recuperate.

Which brings me to Jette.

It's so difficult to write about Jette. Jette and I have a long history of ups and downs and romance and breakup and my feelings about her, appropriately, are complex.

There were times this weekend when I wanted to strangle her, and times when I wanted to hug her. I'm sure the feeling was mutual in both cases. We know exactly how to get on each others' nerves, and we know exactly when to tell each other the truth - and sometimes those two amount to the same thing.

If I say, "Gee, I'm kinda glad Jette is leaving in the morning," she'll read this and think I don't want to have her back again - which isn't true. It just means that I'm tired of houseguests - two or three days is my limit - and I need some time to digest all the many things we said to each other this go-round. It doesn't mean I hate her, even though some of the things we said were harsh.

On the other hand, I can't say this visit was all sunshine and roses either, because it wasn't. I have some gripes with the way she's living her life which I had no right to mention to her, no right to fuss about ... and I did it anyway. This is exactly the fault that rubs me wrong in some other friends of mine - implying that they know better than I do how to run my life - and here I am committing the same sin.

Mea culpa, Jette. I suspect you'd rather have had my opinion than my silence, but mea culpa anyway. Even if I did the right thing, it was the wrong thing.