You are wonderful!
You are kind and talented and smart and courageous and funny and caring.
You may even be gorgeous with a sense of style that magazines try to capture.
You might have worked long enough to get that hard body that some women crave. Continue reading →
The gift – a small, tightly wrapped package – arrived on her doorstep. She looked up the street to see who might have left her this surprise. She saw no sign of the giver.
She slowly untied the bow, all the while wondering what could be inside, and who could have left her this gift. She tore at the wrapping and opened the box to find layers of white tissue paper. She parted the sheets of tissue to find a smooth stone. The stone was flat and round and coolly fit in the palm of her hand.
She discovered letters carved on one side of the stone. The message read, “That is about you.”
“That is about you.”
She said it over and over again in her mind. Continue reading →
Often, it isn’t until after you do something that you realize how much you shouldn’t have done that thing. So it was with marrying the narcissist.
In the flurry of preparations the morning of the ceremony, she was approached by well-wishers. The look in their eyes should have told her something. As over-thinking INFJs do, she assumed she needed to do more to make her guests comfortable. Now, as she thinks back on the general mood of the attendees, she realizes those looks showed concern – concern masked by forced smiles.
What should the energy be on that big day? Isn’t it more about the marriage than the wedding? Don’t two people grow together during the marriage? Jitters and cold feet are present at every wedding, aren’t they? The wedding was a formality. The marriage was the true test of their rightness for each other.
Right? Continue reading →
We’d gone into the lodge to make sure she wasn’t getting frostbite. She made faces at me while I rubbed her tender cheeks to get the circulation back. “Honey, keep gently rubbing your cheeks. The white spot will go away as you warm up.” She patted her face and said, “Remember when dad was at the house the other day and he looked at my mermaids?”
“Yeah. That was Thursday.”
“Well, I forgot to tell you what he said.”
“About the mermaids?”
“No, about the mermaids, he just nodded his head and said, ‘I like them. You did a good job.’ But he said something else, too.” Continue reading →
Ho Ho Ho!
It’s been a crazy year, hasn’t it? And you have been SO good. More than that, my friend, you ARE good. Every part of you is good, from your deeds, to your thoughts, to your disagreements with your sister, to your spilled glasses of milk.
Yes! It’s true. I’m here to tell you that no matter what you’ve been told, you are GOOD.
It’s hard to tell sometimes, isn’t it? Sometimes you get a look or a feeling from your dad or mom that leaves you thinking that you aren’t measuring up. Well NOTHING could be further from the truth. See, when they give you that look, they are frustrated with who they are. That’s right! They are mad at themselves. I know it sounds weird. I know it doesn’t feel that way. I know it doesn’t make sense that this big powerful adult is taking their frustrations out on you, but that’s what they do. They can’t help it.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. You already know that I have two lists – the Naughty List and the Nice List. You’ve probably been worried that your name is on the Naughty List. Well, your name is on the Nice List – of course it is, Silly! I promise. My Naughty List contains all the names of the narcissistic parents. Continue reading →
The package arrived around Thanksgiving. Had I been looking out the window at the time of delivery, I’d have seen the mailman straining under the weight of the over-sized box. He’d have had my permission to drop it on the front porch as there was nothing fragile inside. I’d have liked to have heard its loud thump when it hit the wooden planks.
I avoided opening the box for several days. For the first full day, I left the box on the porch – out in the cold.
I knew what was inside from the return address – my own.
On the third day of avoidance, I noticed that someone or something had slit along the packing tape. The contents were leaking out. At first, they leaked with a slow trickle. By day five, I was paddling upstream in a flood. Continue reading →
Aren’t you lucky? You have an INFJ in your life. That means that while you’ll never completely understand what makes her tick, you’ll never be bored, and you’ll always know that she highly values the relationship she has with you.
Let’s try to make the holidays easier for you and for her.
This one is easy – invite her to parties. Your invitation might sound like this, “Hey, I’ve got this party thing and I’d love for you to go, but I know you’d rather die, so I’m inviting you with the understanding that you like the invite, but you have no intention of going, and I’m cool with that.” Continue reading →
The narcissist held on to his money the way he held on to his image. When it came time to plan for a wedding, she knew that being frugal was equally as important as his need to look good. He had made it clear that this would be a small, affordable affair. This was his second, “after all,” even though it was her first.
He did not make it clear that the planning would be left entirely up to her.
Her INFJ qualities drove her desire for a more personal ceremony – she hated being the center of attention. This suited his desire to be the focus. Because he didn’t have many close friends and only rarely spoke to his family, the majority of the attendees were on her side, which conveniently provided him with an opportunity to look good in front of people who didn’t know him well.
“What happened to Christmas?”
“Don’t you mean, ‘What happened to Thanksgiving?’ Didn’t there used to be a holiday somewhere in there between Jack O’ Lanterns and Christmas trees? You remember, don’t you? That holiday that brought everyone together for turkey and pie.” Basil pours a cup of coffee and hands it to Gladys.
Margaret slides the pie server under another piece, “Oh, I always did love Thanksgiving. I think that holiday was my favorite.”
Jon rolls to a stop on his skateboard, “My fav was Christmas. Yeah…. for a kid of divorced parents, Christmas rules. All their guilt turns into way too many Christmas presents for me. Gotta love that.”
“Jon, dear, you know that isn’t what Christmas is about, don’t you?” Margaret hands Jon a sliver of pie. Continue reading →
She’d filed herself down so much, she hardly recognized herself, but then not seeing herself made it easier to focus on him and his needs.
He needed the house to look perfect. He needed the car to stay clean. He needed the lawn to be mowed in a certain pattern. He needed their weekends to be full of the kinds of activities that fit the image he was trying to portray.
She would cook meals that met with his approval. She kept a list of his suggestions as to how she could better prepare his favorites.
She’d fold the towels just so as they watched his favorite shows on TV.
If she tried to read a magazine while the TV was on, he’d make fun of her taste in magazines. Mostly she sat quietly on the other end of the couch and watched shows she couldn’t care less about. Continue reading →
Easy, Jesse. What’s your hurry? You’ll get it all done, and if you don’t, there’s an awfully good chance that it doesn’t need to be done.
There are no commendations for being the fastest laundry folder or having the cleanest kitchen floor.
You’ll get the emails sent, the books formatted and the bills paid in due time.
Make eye contact with them when they ask, “What’s for lunch?” If they want you to jump off the shed roof into the leaf pile, do it. Show her how to read a pattern and then turn her loose. So what if he wants to learn every detail about waxing skis. It doesn’t hurt you to pretend to care.
Have tea with your aunt.
Go to lunch with a girlfriend.
Stay up too late watching a movie.
Eat buttery noodles in a snowdrift of Parmesan and forget about protein for a change.
Don’t worry about keeping up with everything. Not everything needs to be kept up with.
There is grace in taking it slower.
Easy, Jesse.
This morning I received these words from the Universe
in the form of a frazzled voice that sounded a lot like my own.
I read and walked for miles at night along the beach,
writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly
for someone wonderful who would step out
of the darkness and change my life.
It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.
“I like it when you go outside to do your extroverting when you can see that Jen needs to introvert.”
“I like it when you engage with Will when you’d rather be introverting.”
“I like it when I tell you guys that I need help, and you willingly unload the dishwasher or fold the clothes and put them away.”
“I like it when all three of us want to turn off the electronics and talk about the weird dreams we had last night, and neither one of you is itchin’ to get up and leave the room.” Continue reading →
“This boat that we just built is just fine –
