...go to Target.. supertarget, at that... on a Sunday afternoon. I think that today was actually undeclaired family day. I swear I saw more mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, kids, babies... than at a carnival. An since they were all shopping for more stuff.. as we all were... the mothers were usually annoyed, and the fathers were cognitively absent. So the kid is screaming, and another is hitting his sister, and the mom is trying to figure out which shower curtain to buy, and the dad is looking around wondering when it's all going to be over.
And then people acutally have the nerve to ask me things like, "Why are you scared of commitment, Kara?" HELLO- is this what commitment brings? Screaming kids and a husband who can't wait for it all to be over? I'm sorry if that freaks me out a little. I love the part in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where he asks, "have we become the dining dead?" and in his mind he can predict everything that she is going to say. I wonder when life becomes like that- predicable.
Lately I've been longing for stability, but I think that I'm scared of the predicability that inevitably comes with stability. I don't want to become the dining dead.
5 comments:
join the club. i despise predictability. what a bore.
I think that there can be a nice balance between stability and predictability. There is comfort in knowing that I have a predictable job, a predictable home, and predictable friends...but sometimes there must be variety...which is why at about half-way through the semester you might hear about me going to Montgomery, or some other random place...something different. But there is a struggle for the balance and being too familiar. So those are my thoughts for the day.
I would much prefer commitment to bring about faithfulness rather than predictability. You can probably argue that they are the same but I think they are cousins. While at times my friends and family are predictable they are much more faithful. More so, God is extremely faithful but he is so unpredictable that to believe in him is sometimes considered mysterious.
While predictable spontaneity sounds like an oxymoron, it is really quite true in many people I have met.
In watching Good Will Hunting the other day, I was reminded what Robin Williams character said about his wife. (totally paraphrasing)It was not the big things that he remembered. It was the things that made him laugh, argue, get frustrated. The small things.
I think in all relationships we can get comfortable with the stability they provide that it is we ourselves who peg the predictability on others.
I would like to add that I think the faithfulness vs. predicatability is a sort of heart vs. head situation. In that I think the faithfulness that comes with commitment is more about the emotional devotion of the commitment where the predicatability tends to relate more to the manner in which the two people interact which is more practical in nature than emotional. Those of us ultra ghetto independents would probley say that the thought of becoming so enmeshed and entwined that someone can in fact peg us is a bit un-nerving. This is because I have spent a significant amount of time in my life purposely pursuing aspects of life outside of my typical box. I see this exercise of openmindedness and seeking of truth/love/ideas to be valuable. So the thought of ever being so stable and predictable scares me really-I mean yea it sounds really boring to the spontaneous side of me (which seems to flow quite thickly in my blood)-but it is scary because I want to be growth oriented, I want to spend my life curiously looking for the face of Jesus and though HE IS and WILL BE (John 1) I find His eyes in the oddest of places and want to keep finding it. This is just my faith! To imagine having a partner in this kind of a life. . . freaks me out. Especially because-how many people do you know that truly attempt to live abundant life? really want to be pushed to find this mysterious God?
As a side, I agree about the struggle for balance and being too familiar. To take my friendship with Kara for instance. . .this is not boring. I know her so stinking well that I know how to make her laugh, know when its ok to interrupt her to bring up my own thoughts, know when she may need me to reach out and hold her hand (which is actually all the time), know when it may be good to ask for forgiveness, etc. And yet in our friendship she is always mysteriously transforming and changing in a way, moving a bit, growing always because she values what Carl Rogers calls On Becoming a Person. Growth oriented, she is. And it is THIS kind of stability of commitment that brings me hope that it is maybe possible that this can occur in marriage partnership.
Then there's the issue that men are so weird.
ooff.
look up what trevor said. . .his quote at the top about faith/predictability. .
http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=TrevorAdair&tab=weblogs&uid=327966451
Post a Comment