Wednesday, June 04, 2008

WEIRD MIRROR IMAGES...

I don't want to overwork the "looking-glass" metaphor, but some things really do just line up with it.

When I first married, my Southern Sister remarked, on meeting my wife for the first time: "But you're not like Mom at all!" The clear implication was that she expected me to marry my mother. God forbid, whatever Oscar Wilde may have said to the contrary. What was odd there was that Isis could be said to resemble my mother superficially, but not in any way that counts: i.e., only in externals could you make any connection. What is odder is that the Goat does resemble my mother in profound ways, but of course the physical resemblance is nil.

So, it appears that, having married my mother's outward appearance and my father's personality the first time, I am now in thrall to a man who has much of my father's outward appearance and, alas, much of my mother's personality.

There is no way around the fact that I spent years in love with my father without having even had an inkling, but the inklings eventually began to pile up; they came home to roost [to mix metaphors with abandon] not long after he died. Actually, things began shifting into focus in the last years of his life... So, having fought off even thinking about the whole Leather Thing, and fought off connecting it [and the dots...] to the Daddy Thing, and for years, now I have been forced to accept the Inner Girl for the force of nature she is, and knuckle under.

Who am I to argue with fate?

Then there is the odd fact that the two relationships of any duration I have had in my life resemble each other in many ways, large and small. The difference is the role that I played and play in them. I used to the wild and crazy guy rotating madly around the calm center that Isis provided. Now I am forced to make an attempt to create a calm center, because the Goat is off in wild eccentric orbits much of the time. Is that weird or what?

The question is:

Why do I have the nagging feeling that I was better off the first time? Not that I could go back even if I wanted to at this point, but the question remains. The bedroom now sets off more fireworks than the Fourth of July, but there are days when I do long for the way the rest of the house was run... Oh, well. I got to live with "my father" for twenty-five years, now I get to sleep with "him." It's a short life, but a merry one, here in the Frozen North.

Who ever said God didn't have a sense of humor?

Not me.
Hang in there, all.
C

4 comments:

  1. I'm dying to ask this, as I have not been able to figure it out even though I have searched your blog entries from beginning to end: Question being == why do you call him the Goat? Is he hairy or something? Please please post an answer. Thank you.

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  2. My Dear Anonymous:

    You obviously don't search very thoroughly, though "from beginning to end" sure SOUNDS pretty thorough.

    Try toward the end of this post:
    http://trollatsea.blogspot.com/2007/04/easter-risen-indeed.html

    And welcome aboard. I'm not sure I've ever heard from anybody who searched things from beginning to end, though I certainly did that when I first started reading GMM blogs, back in the Mesozoic era. I actually printed them all out so I could read them in book, rather than reverse, order...

    Anyway, it's nice to have a lurker come out into the open...

    I miss my lurkers. I seem to have scared a lot of them away by listing some of the [to me] more amusing places they came from. That'll teach me to find humor in the internet.

    Nowadays almost everybody is here looking for things I last mentioned months, if not years, ago [Sagat, Greasetank, Tagame...]. That accounts for a depressing proportion of the traffic, aside from my four or five faithful regulars, to whom I am, of course, "thoroughly" grateful.

    Cheers
    T@C

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  3. well, kind of a convoluted answer, but I think I get it. So Silver Fox, SF, Goat, Old Goat, etc., etc. etc., are all the same person? And how old (may I ask) is he and how old (OK, I have not read your blog from beginning to end) are you? Love your blog.

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  4. Dear Anonymous:

    Are you one of a number of Anonymoi, or are you commenting on multiple posts to cause trouble?

    I am 56; the Goat [once the Silver Fox [=SF] is heading for 63. I used to think I was only interested in the Chinese gymnastic team; lo, how the mighty are fallen.

    Hang in there.
    T@C

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