Baggage Check

Published by Laurie on Tagged Life, Midlife, Mindset

I have a friend who has been my friend since we were 5 years old.  She is the same age as me and has no children and has never been married.  She has always been picky when it comes to men.  Even when we were in our 20’s she would always find something wrong with any guy she dated.  As the years passed, it was always a similar story.  First it was she couldn’t find the perfect guy (an oxymoron), and then it was she couldn’t find the right guy, now she says all the men she meets have baggage and issues.  Well, DUH of course they do.  We’re in our forties.  If they have had any kind of life up to this point they should have issues.
 
I have issues, you have issues, everyone has issues.  We are all damaged goods.  No one is brand spanking new for very long. (didn’t you ever hear someone whisper “he was cut off of breastfeeding too early, that’s why he’s like that”)?  We all start collecting baggage and issues at an early age.  My husband’s mom used to punish him by putting Tabasco sauce in his mouth for swearing or mouthing off.  To this day, I have to make chili that tastes more like tomato and meat sauce because he can’t stand anything spicy.  He claims it’s because he’s a super-taster, but trust me, it’s just one of a myriad of his issues.
 
The very first traumatizing incident in my own childhood that I can remember happened when I was 3 or 4 years old.  I know it was definitely before kindergarten.  We had this mechanical barking puppy dog.  I don’t know if my parents bought it for me or if it was a gift from a relative, all I know is I can remember exactly how it looked and sounded. (kind of like one of these, only much scarier) It was brown and white, and would walk few steps, then bark and wag its tail, with a motorized sound in the background.  I was terrified of this thing.  Really petrified.  I remember my mother, repeatedly bringing out the dog and setting it in front of me and I would start crying immediately.  She would try to calm me down, then turn it over, flip the switch on its belly and set it down. The thing would start moving and barking and I was screaming.  That’s not the best part. The best part is I can distinctly remember her doing this when they had friends over.  I can remember vividly, all the adults, (probably tipsy on highballs) laughing hysterically at me while I was screaming and running from this evil toy.  Apparently my terror amused them to no end. Who knows, that incident may have been the seed that sprouted and eventually grew into the giant issue tree it is today between my mother and myself.
 
My point is we start our issues young, with relatively minor things, and throughout life we keep adding more issues, bigger issues.   We are all damaged goods by the time we reach 40.  We have all been hurt many times over the years, we have collected hang-ups and prejudices and hopefully, along the way, have lost a few.  But I can say with pretty fair certainty that if your looking for someone with a clean slate.  Forget it.  They don’t exist.  (unless they’re 4 years old)

So I asked her, what was wrong with the latest guy.  She said he had trust issues.  He was divorced with a teenage daughter, and he recently started dating again.  She said he was always calling her, asking her what she was doing, or where she was going.  “Hmmm, always?” I asked.  “Well, no” she said, “not always, just twice, but I don’t like it.”  I tried to reason with her “Well, maybe he does have trust issues. Maybe his wife was cheating on him with his best friend, or maybe his wife scared the crap out of him with a toy dog, it doesn’t matter.  He has those issues now, but the best thing about it is that they can be reversed.  Look at it this way, he has the courage to put himself out there and start dating, and he had to courage to ask you out and risk being turned down. Imagine, he’s 46 years old and is putting himself through that possible rejection because he wants to be happy.  I’d say he was a pretty good guy.   Why don’t you give him another chance?”  She thought about it for a half of a second and said, “No, he looks like he chews on his fingernails. They look like little nubs. I hate that.”  So I told her, “Listen, you’re my friend, and I love ya to death, but honey, you have issues.”

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September 19th, 2007