Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Funnel

It's hard to notice things that would be traditionally considered weird, beecause so many things in NY are weird. You just get used to it after a while and stop noticing. So a girl is standing next to you on the train wiith a goat on a leash. So what? Today there was a guy on the train holding a funnel. Nothing else, just holding on with one hand and holding a funnel with the other. It wasn't even in a bag or anything.

I was staring at this funnel and thinking about something Doug told me a few months ago. It was when I talked to him about my anger issue. He told me he'd had an anger problem too and his way of managing it is to accept that it takes a lot of energy to be angry, and less energy to just let things go, accept them as they are.  As soon as he feels it coming, he thinks about if what he's getting angry about is worth the anger. Then he always tries to see the situation from other people's sides. It all sounds so lame, like what you'd read in a magazine, but Iam trying to remember to try it just in case.

So I'm staring at the funnel and thinking about how enraged it makes me that my sisters don't stress about everything as much as I do, and it's not fair. They don't stress because they know Ido. Basically, I realized it's jealousy. I'm jealous. It's like I'm at the top of the funnel dealing with everything as it hits full force, then Dani's right near the smallest part inside dealing with whatever Icouldn't handle, and Alex is right outside the hole, twirling around mostly ignoring everything.

It's not fair. Why can't I be Alex? Why does Alex get to be Alex? But really she lost too. I get the most mommy memories. She has the least. Maybe she's jealous of me. When she was little she used to lie and say she remembered things Dani and I would talk about. Sometimes it'd be things she wasn't even there for. Right there is our trade. She gets almost no stress, I get almost all the memories. It's not Al's fault she got born last. I wish sometimes we could trade places on the funnel.

Maybe I worry too much. When you worry that you'll worry forever that's a bad sign, right? I worried even on vacation. Barely slept late. Alex will dance out the door and not think twice about whether she remembered her lunch and keys. I'm jealous of that too. I wonder where other people feel like they stand on the funnel.

5 comments:

Principled Slut said...

That's a great analogy. You are who you are and you can't really change that. All you can do is try to push yourself a little to let go, and accept that you'll never be Alex and that's ok because Sam is pretty great.

I worry too much, so I guess I'm pretty high on the funnel. Sometimes it gets so bad that I have to just not do chores I know I should do. Doing them makes me worry about them. But then I begin to worry about putting them off too long. It's kinda a no-win.

Anonymous said...

Sam, your blog is so great. I wish you'd be a published writer. You say that your sister and Josh are smarter than you but you have a special kind of cleverness too.

I hope your arm feels better soon!

Rosie said...

I know you haven't asked for advice, but...yeah, just call this assvice, and ignore if you don't want or need it.

You have essentially become the parent for your sisters. Part of parenting is raising your kids so that they are independent and don't need you anymore. You do a lot of things for your sisters that they could--and should--do for themselves. If they f*** up, that's okay, it's part of the learning experience. Let them fail.

Now, letting go doesn't mean that you will automatically stop worrying. But eventually, you will trust that they can do for themselves, and trust them and yourself to be okay if they do fail.

OTRgirl said...

That's a very insightful analogy. I think my husband is at the worry rim and I'm somewhere in the middle. I tend to think things will work out and not stress too much about it. He gets mad at me because he feels like I don't care. It's not that as much as not being willing to get stressed out about everything. Maybe it's like the anger idea, only stressing/worrying when it feels worth it?

I respect that you were able to recognize the root of the anger though.

Mizasiwa said...

I think its an important realisation or rather the ability to word how you feel about things - i find it helps when I understand why I am angry at certain things. I am right at the top of the worry funnel. My brother and sisters dont seem to worry about anythign and neither does my husband I get angry at all of them for not taking what I am worried about seriously and I have issues with people becouse they never seem to worry about something before me. So its always me having to sort out issues long before someone sees it as a problem.