the purefinder - archives - Fri, 2004-06-11
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punchbagging
Today I've been 'the punchbag' again. It hasn't been a lot of fun. Ordinarily I profess myself to be wary, or at least something other than casual, when writing about those whose lives intersect meaningfully with me. This particular aversion arises partially because of my, selfish, customary reluctance to give anyone sticks to hit me with. There is also a matter of propriety.
I use the challenges that my life, and myself, set for me to bolster my sense of worth. I like to achieve a difficult thing and I like to survive a difficult thing. I'm pretty confident that I'm being a good man at the minute - in challenging times. Though fate has decreed that I/we have some challenging stuff to deal with at the minute I think that I'm doing OK. I'm managing to keep myself sane and, importantly, I'm managing to keep myself behaving well - specifically with those whose lives intersect meaningfully with me.
I like internal validation. I'm generally happy enough to _know_ that I'm doing occasional good things and happy enough to know that every so often I've managed to negotiate a difficult situation. I can then be content to know that these good things just mean that I don't need to hate myself. That is ordinarily enough.
Today, after it transpired that I was, again, 'the punchbag', I felt upset and damaged and frustratingly unable to reconcile what I needed to do to be a proper loving partner in sickness and health, with my own needs as a moderately sensitive chap under attack. Being the proper loving partner meant that I didn't react and I reminded myself that by finding a peaceful and secure place inside me to retreat to I was doing a good thing.
Later I phoned my mum and moaned. I found it enormously helpful to actually be able to utter aloud the words that had been bouncing around inside my head all day. She didn't think I was a bad man either. There are thus two of us ;-)
(This might not make any/much sense; I've undoubtedly benefited more from writing it than you have from reading it. Sorry.)
Posted by padraig at June 11, 2004 10:58 PM