It is not a secret that I am a raging control freak. ABOUT EVERYTHING. Nor is it a secret that I am pathologically introspective, self absorbed, and completely socially inept. Luckily I have found that being a control freak can help you develop a quite successful career of managing projects and making lists and being the go to girl who gets it done. And adulthood seems to reward my eccentricities and oddities in a way that childhood and adolescence did not. Unfortunately these traits have their downsides as well. No one likes living with a control freak. And the combo of introspection, self absorption and my social ineptitude has meant I typically have a hard time maintaining friendships through distance and time. I was thinking about this the other day in my self absorbed introspection way. Something that comes up periodically with my psychologist is I seem to be unable to define why I make the choices I have in the past and therefore seem unsure as to why I continue on the same road (other than I dislike change). I was recently asked what it was about Tom that changed my life and made me what to marry him. I was sort of at a loss…I was 19 then…my life and even my person and head were different. Why I chose him doesn’t have anything to do with why I love him today and continue to choose him.
Or so I thought. I had a mild epiphany yesterday about something I have said for a long time. Without Tom I am alone, completely utterly alone. That isn’t wholly accurate of course, my relationship with my brother and sister in law as blossomed into something I never though I would have. I trust and love them deeply and know they are in my corner. I have the delightful Rosemary Waits who besides being unbelievable smart and talented loves me for reasons I don’t always understand and has never wavered in her support and love.
But before Tom, before those, I was alone. I struggled in my relationships with people. I was highly manipulative and distrustful. I never really knew love before Tom. He swept into my world and was the first person in my entire life to establish himself firmly and resolutely in my corner. We didn’t and don’t always agree and while being loved is as hard as not being loved sometimes he made me not alone. We were in this life together. We loved, mourned, celebrated together. He has always seen the best in me even if he might have a hard time telling me that. He sees the best in me even when I am at my worst.
He was the first person who has never, not in the nearly 13 years we have been married ever implied I can’t accomplish something or that I am not smart, funny, and everything I not-so-secretly want to be. He maintains his friends love me (although I have my doubts). Every single thing I have ever expressed wanting to do he has encouraged me and shown nothing but absolute confidence in my ability to do it even while I wavered and cried and struggled.
He was the first person who ever really loved me, through all my faults and weaknesses. He loved me through every single poor choice I ever made. It is hard to remember and see that when I am frustrated by coming home late or not following my obsessive need to be in control. But he does, he always has, I believe he always will. And that is why I married him and while I choose him every single day and will for the rest of my life.
I feel like you are living my life in the future. I was just wondering why my fiance loves me, why he tolerates me being so up tight. How my friends fade in and out. I’m 20 right now, I know a lot of people but am not the girl invited to birthday parties. My “close” friends vary from month to month.