Our washing machine is broken. Well, not completely broken. It makes clothes wet, and spins them around, but it also complains a lot while it does it. SQUEAK SQUEAL SQUAWK THWACK THWACK THWACK. One time it moved itself in front of the garage door, barring me from getting out of the house until I paid attention to its condition. "I'm washing your clothes, but its uncomfortable and makes me knifey. DO SOMETHING." Okay, washing machine. Okay.
So, I told Eric to call a repairman, and then I was like, "FIFTY DOLLARS?!?!!" (which is a family inside-joke, so 98% of the people who read this won't think it's funny, but I couldn't resist putting it in). It was going to cost a lot to have the guy just come out and tell me I'm putting the clothes in wrong or something, so I asked my dad to take a look. He took it apart, and we counted springs and checked the belt, and made sure the little man who lives inside the machine had a fresh bowl of mush, and closed it back up, dissatisfied that apparently, nothing is wrong, and my machine just LIKES complaining.
Of course, I took this incident as a metaphor for my life. My psychologist (who I've been seeing for a month now, thanks) thinks I complain a lot. Well, he didn't say that exactly. It was more like, "Do YOU think you complain too much?" and when I shrugged and muttered yes, he looked smug. I do complain a lot though. It's true. "My cane hurts my hand" "I don't want to put Harrison in daycare" "My VR counselor is irritating" "Fruity Pebbles taste like medicine" and so on and so forth.
I'm not sure what I hope to achieve by complaining. It does nobody good, and distances me from the ones I love.
EXCEPT, I'm sorry, but there IS a lot wrong with the way my life is "supposed" to be going right now. This isn't what I planned out. And sure, nobody gets what they ask for, but the thing is, this really does suck. SQUEAK SQUEAL SQUAWK.
And sometimes people don't get that it bothers me, because I put on an "I'm okay" face, and just deal with it, because my only other option is to crawl into bed and pretend the world doesn't exist. I don't like doing that. I want to be big about this. I want to be the queen of Going Blind "The Right Way", as if there's a right way to handle this. I want people to admire the way I've played the cards I've been dealt, and I want to be an inspiration story and end up on Oprah because of how awesome I am.
But I'm just not that person. I'm more of a THWACK THWACK THWACK type. Because even though everything looks okay, even after you open me up a little, there's something wrong. Something is not quite working right. A loose wire or two. Brain synapses aren't firing. Unresolved anger? Maybe a worn snubber ring?
So maybe I need to just keep doing what I'm doing. Get through the day-to-day, and then just keep going to my psychologist so I can figure out why I'm such a Negative Nancy. At some point, I'll figure out what to do about all the complaining I do. At some point, I'll turn my frown upside down. At some point, hopefully in the not too distant future, I'll be a much-less-complainy me.
In the meantime, I'm going to spend fifty bucks on a washing machine repairman. At the very least, I'm going to be able to wash my clothes in peace.
(P.S. I SOOOOOO badly wanted to make a joke about how maybe I'm just PMSing because of my "cycle", but I thought washing machine/lady parts humor would cheapen the post. Thank god for post scripts.)
9 comments:
Here's the deal - you wouldn't make me laugh if you weren't complaining, so you can't stop now. For me. Please.
Also, I've noticed when my life is pissing me off, I make WAY better blog posts. Maybe it's more inspirational? So you should lay off the therapy and indulge your negativity just for me.
My washing machine is broken too. We currently have it hot glued together, and after every load I have to re-glue the offending wayward piece in order to do the next batch. I think maybe that's a really effing good metaphor for my mental state altogether.
My New Year's resolution for the past 5 years has been to complain less, but so far all I've figured out about how to turn my frown upside-down is to make everyone else stand on their heads.
I think Oprah has made people with that "when life makes lemons..." attitude overrated. Being a realist is not always being a pessimist. Pointing out how shitty a situation is is not always complaining.
Very true, Keiko.
I loved this post, Renee. I've been feeling extra-complainy lately and it's really bothering me... it helped to know that there's another thwacker-turned-don't wanna thwack no mo' person out there.
Love the jokes, NMW (no matter what). IGAKOT. :)
It might be the snubber right, but before you replace that, have you checked to see if anything heavy is in there. Like, you know, a kid or something? They often get really heavy when they are wet.
Hey. Me again. My husband thinks his comment is funnier than mine. I'm pretty sure he's wrong. Can you help settle our dispute?
I love your sense of humor! I was just having this conversation w/Steve about the right way to go blind ... ha - its pressure and we've just got to be ourselves!
I'm curious... are you going to follow this up with how the washing machine repairman said our machine was too effed up to think about fixing. Does your psychologist have the same attitude toward you? Yikes.
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