Last night I played volleyball in a public yard next to the beach with my daughter and her friend. The sun had dipped behind the mountains and left the cold wind behind. After eating our dinner in a picnic-blanketed hole in the dunes, the girls ran like the little children they once were with their ball to the yard. "Mom, do you want to play?" Yes. Yes I do.
While the cold licked me all over and the ball stung my arms, I didn't notice for all my laughter and theirs. I noticed how I couldn't help it, laughing and laughing, drunk on our collaboration. My daughter said I looked like my grandma there. "What?" "Just the way you moved there." "Like G.G. ?" She nodded and hit the ball to me. I only quit after awhile because I had to pee. I went to test-squat relief in the dunes near by but all had been cut too short to hide my arse easily behind. "All the jumping around and laughing will have me pee my pants," I announced. "It happens when you get old." The golden retrievers continued on. Hit, laugh, set, laugh, slam, laugh.
My brain is steeping in Adlerian psychology at the moment. I don't know much about it except what's stuck in my craw is the idea here that there is no trauma and our behavior perfectly suits goals we have. Not the goals we say we have. But, if you look at the behavior, you may see what the goals are.
So working backward, I choose men to date, for instance, that I know are unavailable for the relationship I say I want from the beginning, because then I can go through the throes of acting like I'm working toward a serious relationship while avoiding potential rejection by someone who is available for a healthy relationship with me--which would make the dissolution of the healthy relationship my fault and potentially point to something being fundamentally wrong with me, that I'm not enough, perpetually. And when the unavailable men and I inevitably break-up, it will no doubt be because of something they did, that I could no longer tolerate. So, I can get away with putting it on them, not me. My goal then is not to find a healthy match of a relationship. My goal is to avoid rejection and maintain superiority. Whacked, huh?
Now, I'm off to aqua dance class - the weirdest thing I've ever done.
-mp