Pies and musings

This past weekend I made my first Key Lime Pie. I don't want to claim any gourmet status from this. I went with the basic recipe thats all over the backs of boxes, lime juice bottles and sweetened condensed milk cans with a basic pre-made graham crust (I prefer gingersnap crust, but was short on time). But, I did make it my own by serving it with a fresh raspberry coulis made from frozen raspberries and grand marnier. Oh the sauce was as good as the pie! My husband is as much of a pie man as a cake man, but I lean more toward cakes. However, as we approach the southern summer humidity, perhaps I should tweak my recipe selection to include more pies. My mother has the best ice box pie I have ever had!

Ewan is now crawling along with Rowan. Rowan was an early crawler, and Ewan and early sitter but both are now sitting and crawling and a few weeks earlier than Lucas and Matilda did. I credit this to them having the larger playroom now which Lucas and Matilda didn't have... and the fact that "tummy time" isn't nearly as scary the second time around. Or, third and fourth time I should say.

A friend of mine was telling me a story about her mother than has quite effected me. I was telling her how often when people tell me things, I *want* to ask them to stop. For instance, if I know someone and think well of them, I really don't want to hear that five years ago they were a stripper or something. Plus, out of its original context, most past stories about people sound way worse than the circumstances may have been during that time the events occurred that became the source of the original tale. And besides, What does that have to do with them *now*. I guess alot of people relish being included in that sort of ugly gossip, but I don't. It usually makes me feel very sad for the persons past, and then worrying I will now judge them based upon their mistakes. Or repeat the story myself. Goodness knows we have all made mistakes and all of us surely have skeletons in our closets we would prefer to not have dragged out for company!

So my friend was telling me about her mother who passed away a few years ago. She said her mother didn't like hearing hurtful gossip and didn't like hearing what she described as "off color humor". She said when anyone would approach her and begin a conversation with "I heard the worst thing about _____!" her mom would step back, throw her hand up, and say "I don't want to hear it then." Or "I just heard this joke, its a little bit rude but..." her mom would interject "Then you might should share it with someone else".

This behavior was so shocking to me that I had to just sit on it for a week and think. WHY did this shock me? WHY does this sound so strange?

Because I was brought up to always be a polite listener and to not hurt other peoples feelings. I don't know how I became this way- I can't tell you if it was having a mother can be insensitive, or if it was from being told every single person was our "elder" who had earned our respect... all I know is that I have become an adult who listens to garbage they would rather not hear for the sake of avoiding conflict by asking the person to stop including me in their gossip.

And worse, I am involved in triangular communications all the time and those are so unhealthy. Do you know what this is? This is when person B and person C both have a dislike for person A. Person B calls Person C and tells them something Person A recently did. Now these two neither have perspective or unbiase toward A because they both dislike them. Person C engages in gossip and reaffirms the negative experience Person B had. Person B leaves the conversation with even more hostility than they began with toward Person A because they gossiped with a person who "dittos" their feelings.

Or, here is another example. Person B calls you and says "I think you should know what Person A has said, but its in confidence". Person C then hears something very ugly thats essentially hearsay but sworn to secrecy so they can neither confirm or deny the rumor about Person A. And when they are relating something Person A said about you, you are now burdened with the knowledge of a conversation that may have not been intended for you, and unable to confront Person A to ask. Then you grow to hate someone based on gossip you were asked to not confirm.

Its that last scenario thats make me want to pull my hair out. I really don't want to hear anything ugly being said about me, my husband, or my children. I don't want to hear ugly things that *might* be said about us regarding my decisions for our family. If Person A has a problem with me, they need to deal with me directly, and if they are just venting to Person B about me, I perfectly respect that and don't want to know!!!

What happened to discretion?

Both of the previous mentioned types of dysfunctional conversations rely on the third leg- person C- to function.

I initially thought I would just copy my friends mother and start throwing up my hand and asking that the information be relayed to someone else. I haven't been able to do this. Ugh. The lessons from my childhood on being a polite listener are ingrained too deeply.

My current idea has been to undermine the strength of the triangle by not being an active listener. Maybe I can't stop them by throwing up my hand, but perhaps if I become a person who it isn't fun to relay gossip to, it will still stop none the less. This process will be slower, but it may have the same result. And in the mean time I want to work on being more assertive. After all, the reason I don't want to throw my hand up and say "No, please don't tell me this" is because I worry I am hurting the other persons feelings. But, hearing this stuff hurts *my feelings*. Why should I sacrifice myself for the sake of GOSSIP?

Just something I am working on...