Who Has “A Saving-People-Thing”?

Mom in the 1960s style: nylons, tight skirt, cigarette. I see a sneaky grin that says she knew the camera was catching all of that!

Moving forward from Dave’s death, from having to sell our home, and from meanwhile repairing damage from the distant past includes a lot of gardens tended and a lot of agonized decisions. I have “you are the oldest child and therefore responsible” hammered into my bones from both parents, so I tend to stick firmly to commitments. That ensured that I had no doubts about taking care of Dave through his years of illness and his long and mostly predictable dying. Commitment plus love can carry a person far.

But it’s also a problem, because … I tend to stick with ALL commitments. One year into “dating” S, I knew his finally confessed addiction to a mood-altering substance didn’t fit what I wanted from life, but it took me another year of trying harder, trying to be accepting, trying to follow through on deep affection, before I finally gave him back his duplicate house key forever. Even so, that particular departure wasn’t traumatic, and for me, I made it to the decision point in record time.

The “instruction tape” I’ve got inside me that still gets me into trouble goes like this: Someone asks for a commitment. I make a commitment. Then I do whatever it takes to keep it, often setting aside dreams and goals along the way. “You make a choice and you follow through.”