The 'good' fight

Resolution #5: I will not run away from a fight. The fight will find me again and again, and each time it will be more confident.

The past week has found me nurturing my own twisted version of bipolar disorder far more than can be justified by any rational argument. It's also found me reading and writing. (And breathing too, while I'm at it.)

In particular, I ran across a network of sites on gifted and highly gifted children, which inspired a couple of long-overdue rants that I may post later, when I'm in a cheerier and more caring mood. (Now isn't the time for reasons that will shortly be obvious to the astute angel-watcher.)

Right now, a dead letter for the archives:

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I have felt, for a long time now, that I don't have a tolerable relationship with you.

For an equally long time I have tried to fix this and failed badly. I've swung back and forth between trying to tell you all the things that I think should change and backing off when this enrages you and you either righteously chastise me or unrighteously throw a tantrum.

I've begun to see in the past few months that this was perhaps the worst possible thing I could do for both our sakes. I have deluded myself into believing that I can build a calmer and deeper relationship with you, but I have never succeeded in doing so. More importantly, I have made you my unwitting accomplice in misery: my alternately obstinate and conciliatory moods, which must to you seem opaque and causeless, have trained you that when I am angry the correct approach is to verbally attack and denigrate me until I relent, and that when I am amicable it is a fruitful tactic to say hurtful and misleading things about me to your friends (in my presence), perhaps in the hope of shaming me away from future complaints or arguments.

I do not know where this leaves me, or you. Some part of me may always believe that it is possible and desirable for me to have a more meaningful relationship with you, but I no longer am naive enough to think I know how to bring it about, nor even to think it can be formed through any effort of mine. Faced with this, all I can do is stop trying.

So stop attacking my ather when he doesn't agree with you, and I'll stop voicing my dissent. Stop insulting me and I'll let you insult others with impunity, save they be people I love. Stop couching your words in doublespeak and I'll stop disobeying your orders while I'm in your house. Stop demanding my gratitude for those orders and I'll countenance whatever else you demand of me, until I can obtain by other means such freedoms as adults allegedly enjoy.