My boyfriend and I were out driving to a place we had never been before. He hates driving and I'm awful with directions, so I drove and he was navigator. It was supposed to be easy. Google maps had us take an exit, take a right turn, then that road supposedly just turned into another road and poof! Our destination would be on the right. But is that how it worked out? Of course not.
We got the exit alright, we turned right alright, we were on the road we were supposed to be on, but did it change names into the next road? No. It turned into a grocery store parking lot. Before we knew it we were somewhere around Delmar trying to find our way through St. Louis back to the interstate so we could start over.
"Should I turn around?" I asked.
"No, just turn here and it should lead us down a parallel road and get us back to where we got lost."
Did it? Of course not. It lead into a maze of tiny subdivisions and within minutes we were hopelessly lost. My iPhone wouldn't recognize our location, so he got on Google maps and was trying to zoom in close enough to find what tiny subdivision roads we were on so we could get back. As he wrestled with my phone I resignedly drove through the rain past quaint old little houses trying to read road names through my furiously wiping wipers.
I couldn't help thinking as I drove along how our driving situation was analogous to our dating situation. Why? Because my brain thinks in analogies. You see, he and I had been dating a year and a half, and what had started out as true love had aged rapidly to dissatisfied old couple. He was stressed, I was insecure and nagging and I had no clue how we had reached that point, and no clue how to get out of it without dumping him. In my mind, our relationship was basically lost, but I just kept driving along resignedly, because after a year and a half what else are you going to do? We'd already fought and promised to be better and fought some more, and all the while just kept getting more and more lost. I didn't know where we went wrong and I certainly didn't know how to make it right again.
The first rule of being lost is remembering where you've been. You can't just decide where you're going to go if you don't know where you are, and you can't know where you are without remembering where you've been. And if you can't remember where you've been, then you're screwed.
Unless you have an eagle scout reading a map, which thankfully I did, and we were able to reach our destination. Physically that is, metaphorically we were still pretty lost. It's funny how stupid little things can turn into big, ugly things. Like my insecurity about my appearance. I have a big nose and a less than curvaceous figure, but I knew I couldn't change that, so I began to subconsciously obsess on the thing I could change. At 125 lbs and 5' 7", I definitely shouldn't be worrying about my weight. I know the statistics, I'm on the bottom edge of healthy and I know it. Yet somehow when I look into the mirror I feel fat. Somehow when I sit down and see that extra bit of skin around my middle I want to stop eating for a week. I know it is crazy, and I normally eat a bunch of chocolate to combat the feeling, but it's still hovering in the back of my head. Am I a well-controlled anorexic? Am I going mental? It's stupid, it's silly really that I should be concerned about my weight, but combined with a not-complementary boyfriend, my insecurity grew.
As for my boyfriend, he has troubles with worry. He worried about the craziest things, and I never really thought he was serious. As he progressively became more stressed and unable to have fun or even sleep normal amounts I realized something very important. If someone is worried about something ridiculous, it doesn't mean they are laughable, it means they need help. And by questioning why we weren't having fun anymore and blaming all our relationship issues and my insecurities on him, I certainly wasn't helping. I was making him retreat emotionally and get all bottled up, which helped neither his stress nor my self-image issues as he became more distant from me.
So what did we do? We pulled over and asked for directions from people who had the maturity and experience to help us figure out where we stood. We still have yet to make a plan of where we are going from here, but realizing how we got where we are is a big step towards getting on the right path. Maybe it took so long for us to admit what was wrong was because we didn't want to admit to ourselves that we had such deep issues over such crazy things. Never underestimate the damage a stupid little thing can cause, because that is exactly how they cause their damage. The fly under the radar and are allowed to grow unchecked because they scoffed at as insignificant until they have turned into big ugly problems. Often they are the guise for much deeper issues, so next time you notice yourself or your friend consistently making detrimental comments, even in jest, don't just shrug it off. And don't be afraid to open up to your friends and family. You are not alone.
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