Jackie Danicki

I was just talking to Nancy Rommelmann (I call her Mommelmann for a very good reason) about how I’m trying to stop believing that it is my responsibility to protect everyone I care about from their shortcomings, how I’m trying to stop feeling guilty for not cleaning up their messes, or for not doing more to prevent the messes I could see quite clearly they were heading for, because with one or two of these people, if I point out that hey, there’s a mess about to be made, no matter how gently and with how much concern and care I say it, they get defensive and emotional and then project that onto me and it’s just a big, gut-churning mess. When I writhe and agonise aloud to Antoine about these people, he always says to me, in as voice as close as he gets to a shout, “It’s not your problem! Let them deal with their own crap!” But somehow, because Nancy is more like me, her reply really speaks:

[T]his is about taking on stuff that, well, is not really ours to shoulder…[P]eople (hate to say it, women) like you and me, we rub our hands and get hot in the belly and worry worry worry… but you know what, there’s nothing you can do…after the fact so, what is the worry for? I’ll tell you what it accomplishes; it pre-digs the ditch you’re going to stand in and grovel, so, I don’t see there’s a point. This, spoken from a woman who is a championship shoveler! My friend Sarah tells the story of me, working two jobs, caring for baby Tafv, cleaning and cooking and looking after 14 alcoholic men living under my roof, and how I was saying, “I’m done! I am not going to help any one, any more! I am so tired of doing everything for everyone else!” and she’s supporting me, and telling me, yes, yes, and then mentions that she needs to get some chairs over to her house. “Let me carry them,” I apparently said, jumping up. She thinks this is hilarious; she reminds me of it each time I see her. Well, it’s our nature, but, forget it…[T]he world [will continue] to rotate on its axis.

And I’m thinking, maybe some of these people try to give me their crap to shoulder because, in some way, they sense that I am so very eager to do so. Trying to change these things, it’s hard, but revelatory and interesting too.

Filed under: Friends, Life, Relationships, Survival