HUMPTY DUMPTY
She couldn’t put it off any longer. All Tatti ever knew was the daily raising of her three children, the PTA meetings, Sunday school, laundry, cleaning up after her family, Garden Club, Book Club, dinner parties for her husband’s partners, taking care of her own parents and everything else in between.
Now she found herself without her husband, her children graduated from college and her parents in and out of the Emergency Room . She was no longer in a beautiful 3000 square foot house with a well manicured yard that she landscaped and sweated in to achieve. No. She was existing in a 500 square foot apartment with door slamming neighbors.
People had the nerve to ask her, “How are you doing?”
She decided to have the guts to answer truthfully, “Not so good.”
Tatti found it interesting to see people’s responses to this truth. They normally heard, “Fine” to this enquiry but they did not know how to respond to the negative truth. So Tatti kept telling people the truth and let the responses fall as they may. She was tired of faking fine when she wasn’t fine. Tired of smiling when she didn’t feel like smiling. Tired of putting on a good Southern face to save face. To really fake it she would need plastic surgery to lift the bags under her eyes from the ten billion tears she had cried at night which seeped under her skin to lodge in the morning in two sagging pouches. Maybe, she wondered, if she looked “Fine” she could fake her own self out and begin to actually believe she was “Fine”. Nothing like a little denial to lift one’s spirits.
Fine. The question was, “Would her insurance cover cosmetic procedures?” The bags under her eyes weren’t life-threatening, but maybe if she had a letter from her therapist sent to the insurance company saying she needed it for her emotional and mental uplifting?
She couldn’t put it off any longer. All Tatti ever knew was the daily raising of her three children, the PTA meetings, Sunday school, laundry, cleaning up after her family, Garden Club, Book Club, dinner parties for her husband’s partners, taking care of her own parents and everything else in between.
Now she found herself without her husband, her children graduated from college and her parents in and out of the Emergency Room . She was no longer in a beautiful 3000 square foot house with a well manicured yard that she landscaped and sweated in to achieve. No. She was existing in a 500 square foot apartment with door slamming neighbors.
People had the nerve to ask her, “How are you doing?”
She decided to have the guts to answer truthfully, “Not so good.”
Tatti found it interesting to see people’s responses to this truth. They normally heard, “Fine” to this enquiry but they did not know how to respond to the negative truth. So Tatti kept telling people the truth and let the responses fall as they may. She was tired of faking fine when she wasn’t fine. Tired of smiling when she didn’t feel like smiling. Tired of putting on a good Southern face to save face. To really fake it she would need plastic surgery to lift the bags under her eyes from the ten billion tears she had cried at night which seeped under her skin to lodge in the morning in two sagging pouches. Maybe, she wondered, if she looked “Fine” she could fake her own self out and begin to actually believe she was “Fine”. Nothing like a little denial to lift one’s spirits.
Fine. The question was, “Would her insurance cover cosmetic procedures?” The bags under her eyes weren’t life-threatening, but maybe if she had a letter from her therapist sent to the insurance company saying she needed it for her emotional and mental uplifting?
No?
Fine.
Tatti looked the word up in the dictionary and realized it had many variations.
#15. healthy; well:
#6. delicate in texture; filmy:
#13. delicate or subtle:
#14. bright or clear:
#22. in nautical terms...as close as possible to the wind:
#1. of superior or best quality: of high or highest grade
#2. choice, excellent, or admirable:
#8. highly skilled or accomplished:
Maybe she was looking at it all wrong. Maybe she was fine but in a different definition sort of way.
Perhaps she was delicate and filmy and as close to the wind as was possible but she wasn’t going to blow away. She could be #6 and #22 and strive to reach #1 even though she was tarnished.
Perhaps all she needed to work on was #26, "to make fine or finer, esp. by pulverizing"or #28 “by filtration”.
If she could pulverize her thoughts and emotions and put them through some sort of filtration system, then would she come out “fine”? Or crushed into so many pieces that she could never be put back together again like Humpty Dumpty? After all, the original drawing for that Mother Goose Rhyme was never a fragile egg sitting on a wall. But if the egg fell off the wall and cracked open leaving the yolk separated from the white, then how could it ever be put back together again?
Fine.
Tatti looked the word up in the dictionary and realized it had many variations.
#15. healthy; well:
#6. delicate in texture; filmy:
#13. delicate or subtle:
#14. bright or clear:
#22. in nautical terms...as close as possible to the wind:
#1. of superior or best quality: of high or highest grade
#2. choice, excellent, or admirable:
#8. highly skilled or accomplished:
Maybe she was looking at it all wrong. Maybe she was fine but in a different definition sort of way.
Perhaps she was delicate and filmy and as close to the wind as was possible but she wasn’t going to blow away. She could be #6 and #22 and strive to reach #1 even though she was tarnished.
Perhaps all she needed to work on was #26, "to make fine or finer, esp. by pulverizing"or #28 “by filtration”.
If she could pulverize her thoughts and emotions and put them through some sort of filtration system, then would she come out “fine”? Or crushed into so many pieces that she could never be put back together again like Humpty Dumpty? After all, the original drawing for that Mother Goose Rhyme was never a fragile egg sitting on a wall. But if the egg fell off the wall and cracked open leaving the yolk separated from the white, then how could it ever be put back together again?
Tatti wondered if her marriage was like an egg . . . two people of different colors encased in a shell. Only her shell fell off the 'til-death-do-us-part wall and she found herself broken in tiny pieces with her guts split wide open. Could her marriage still exist in a scrambled mess? After all, an egg was an egg whether it was sunny side up, boiled, or scrambled, right?
Yes . . . but it doesn't look the same . . . feel the same.
© nancy 9.1.2009
© nancy 9.1.2009
"FINE" as defined by the psych student - Feelings Inside Not Expressed.
ReplyDeleteThanks, HgPlt, that's really cool to know.
ReplyDelete