But are there enough forks?

so my friend and her family came over and somehow there was a balance of power tipped and she had an opportunity. we didn't talk about any of the stuff I was thinking we would; instead she got some digs in about her dad. and i saw something in that about my dad. i shouldn't have been astonished when he bore her out and for the benefit of a new acquaintance this evening started telling my stories. I took over half-heartedly. but we talked about brothers and friends. and I embarrassed my sweetie in front of my intellectual friends with my eternal g-crush and say I feel that way about the gboys, like they're brothers of a sort. and everyone laughed and was a little embarrassed at what my sweetie has to put up with (and yet I'll live it down because it's true. i don't know why it's so important but it is. I can squirm about this or I can move on and live my life and be proud of what I do and think and am willing to say out loud).

so then there's this freaky thing that happened in that conversation when everyone said how unusual a history i've had and how i've turned out okay. (happy was the chosen word, and i was actually surprised by the simple truth of that.) but i was again astonished that these friends i see only occasionally would presume to know I've "turned out okay." there was something in the way my mother has seemed to take credit for the same thing and i could hardly believe i was getting it from an acquaintance in my own home.

one on one I get along well with all of these people, but in a group, everyone seems somehow oversimplified, reduced to some kind of role that somehow absolves them of truly saying what they think. they just get to behave as if they were that role. i resisted some of these presumed roles strenuously, and successfully i think. i know what my roles are, and i pride myself on my loyalty. i have always felt rather victorian in my temperament. i can never see myself in anybody else's arms, as a kid or as a peer. so i found it interesting to find myself so absolutely clear on who i am and what i'm about. and it sounds so flat to say "wife and mother" but there's so much there that is impossible to convey to anyone you see three or four times a year.

yet we're glad to have these connections, and they tell us who we are, in many good ways. there's the fun of association and then the discovery of our limits, what games we are and aren't willing to play. my favorite is still pictionary.