I have learned many things from the Jensen family. The most important thing, up until now, has been that one can never trust a Democrat. (Which is not to say, of course, that you can trust a Republican, a Socialist, or a Green Partier, because you really can't trust anybody in politics, at least not completely... But really, you definitely cannot trust a Democrat...)
Well, I learned something else from the Jensens, too... It occurs to me that I've BEEN learning this ever since I moved the hell out fo Binghamton. But as of a few days ago, I've been sort of able to articulate it...
A day or so ago, yet ANOTHER government agent came to the Jensen residence to interview the family about someone. First, there was the Secret Service guy, a week ago, asking about one of Jake's best friends. This time, it was a guy (from an undetermined agency -- I didn't see his badge, and nobody else gets excited enough about this crap to really look...) asking about a member of the Jensen family who is applying for some sort of secret clearance thing in the military.
(This means that the Jensen family member could hear all sorts of wild and exciting things about who-knows-what, and would then be sworn never to tell anyone... Jake had a secret clearance when he was in the military, too. This is really only exciting to me because I often ask, "So, Jake, what kind of secrets did they tell you? Anything about UFO's, or nukes, or anything?" And Jake will reply: "That's classified." Someday, I would love to be able to say, "that's classified," and mean it, but I do enjoy just hearing it...)
Anyway, so this government guy was in the house, asking all sorts of questions about the Jensen family member.
The thing is, there's been a lot of tension between the Jensens and this family member. It's not that they hate him or anything like that. It's just not the healthiest of relationships all the time. So, it was up to the Jensens to make or break their relative, at least as far as this clearance thing...
And, I'll be damned, they pulled themselves together and made their relative sound like the king of the universe.
Well, okay, maybe they didn't go that far. But they were really VERY generous. None of the tension was mentioned. Nobody talked about the awkwardness, or the reasons for it. Nobody said, "you know, he's my relative and all, but he's really kind of a jackass." Nothing of the sort.
And after thinking all of this over, I thought: wow, I am really hard on people. Either that, or the Jensens are just a remarkably generous family.
But really, if someone appeared on my doorstep, asking questions about somebody I'd had some problems with, what would I do? If some government agent came to my door asking if some old enemy of mine were trustworthy, what would I say?
I talk too much shit about people. I'm really quite a negative person sometimes. I don't make enemies very easily, but neither do I make friends easily, and I regard a lot of people with suspicion. When it appears that I'm on the verge of not really liking somebody, I always push it way over the edge. When the grocery clerk is a bitch to me, I will complain about her endlessly. I'll talk about how she doesn't have any teeth. I'll tell perfect strangers about how the stupid clerk has no teeth, and how she probably lost them by giving repeated blowjobs in alleys. I'm a total shit-talker.
After hearing how the Jensens made their relative sound like an angel, I'm wondering if maybe I shouldn't just stop talking shit.
Heh! Yeah, right.
Well, okay, so maybe I should just stop talking so MUCH shit.
Maybe.
So I was thinking... If a government agent came to my door and asked about ____, what would I say?
I thought it over and over. And each time I thought it, I inserted a different name of somebody who has, at one time or another, hurt me.
So then I started thinking about those people, and how I've treated THEM. And how I WOULD treat them if it were up to me to make or break their future in such-and-such career...
There's a step in the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 steps that's something about making a list of people you've hurt, and making direct amends to those people whenever possible. I actually like that part very much, and when I'm less of a bitch, I might actually do it, just because.
Jake said once, "I'm having a lot of trouble with that step, because, at least the way I see it now, I never really hurt anybody who didn't deserve it." This seemed very funny, of course. But there are a couple of interesting points about that...
Jake often goes out of his way NOT to hurt people, even when it's quite clear that they DO deserve it.
I'm not so kind.
I've always seen myself as a sort of mirror. If you're shitty to me, I will be shitty back to you. There are really only a few instances in my life where I've hurt people without provocation. But, for example, when Peter threatened to delete my website, I threatened to sell all of his belongings that he'd left at my apartment. Then he called me all sorts of shitty names, so I changed my website password (who KNOWS how he got it in the first place), and actually DID sell his belongings.
I often wonder if that was an acceptable thing to do.
I mean, really, it wasn't the RIGHT thing to do, but neither is it the right thing to do to allow somebody to manipulate you all the time.
I was raised to turn the other cheek. I turned my cheeks a lot. My cheeks were bright, bleeding red for a number of years, and at some indefinable moment, I just got tired of it. And if someone was mean to me, they got it right back.
When Erich publically humiliated me, I reported him to the dean of students at Santa Fe, for sexual harassment. As far as I know, they never did anything to him, but I always hoped they would.
When Jeff and his boyfriend used my bathroom as a receptable for recycled alcohol one night -- ALL NIGHT -- I told everyone all about it. I repeated all of their weepy, drunken comments. Everybody knew, and I didn't give a damn.
When Peter successfully seduced the man I loved (and then had the nerve to brag about it to my face), I let it slide for about a year, and then, when I'd gathered enough shit on him, I let every single one of his boyfriends know ALL about each other. I ruined all of his relationships all at once. Admittedly, he was stupid enough to have, like, three relationships going on at once in different cities, but I was smart enough to find out about them, and mean enough to cause utter wreckage for him.
When Jo was being a psychopathic bitch, I told everyone that she was being a psychopathic bitch.
See, I was raised to turn the other cheek. I was forced to keep a shitload of secrets when I was a kid -- family secrets, mostly. It's a damned miracle I don't have any ulcers yet. I was told never to tell about this, and never to tell about that... And eventually, it all exploded, because I was so filled with rage at everything I wasn't allowed to talk about. You can ask a 20-something-year-old, like Jake, to say "that's classified" when asked about UFOs, but you can't tell a 12-year-old not to explain why her mom isn't at home. It really borders on cruelty. I haven't really been able to keep secrets since then. And I haven't been able to suppress anger since then, either. It always comes out eventually. I will never be able to obtain a secret clearance.
So, if somebody came to my door, and asked about somebody I'd had some fights with...
I don't know what I'd do.
It isn't always nice to tell the truth. I've told a lot of very MEAN truths in this journal.
It isn't really okay to tell a lie, either.
But I also realized that, of all the people I know, very few will ever use me as a reference, particularly not for something that involves the government.
And it also occurred to me, hell, if Peter ever tried to join the Secret Service or something, and the Secret Service asked me if he was trustworthy, I WOULD tell the truth. I would say: hell no. I'm sorry, but hell no.
I'm never mean to people who don't somehow deserve it.
And I'd never tell the Secret Service, or the FBI, or whoever, that somebody was trustworthy if they're not.
Happily, most of the people who have really hurt me, would not at all be suited for positions in which they'd REALLY need to be trusted with anything. And so if I said, "no, Mr. Interviewer, I really don't think this person would make a good candidate for this sort of thing," it would be true. It wouldn't just be vengeance -- it would really be TRUE. It WOULDN'T just be shit talk.
The Jensen-relative really ought to have a secret clearance. Nobody has any doubt that he's trustworthy with THAT sort of thing.
Anyway...
So, I'm working on finding a balance between turning the other cheek, and insisting on taking an eye for an eye. I know there must be a balance somewhere. Meanwhile, I'm going to continue to observe the Jensens. They're sometimes so different from me that it seems like we're from foreign nations. I talk shit; they go to great lengths NOT to talk shit. I don't really think either way is entirely right. I think sometimes that I'm too much of a bitch, and Jake and his family are way too sweet. But anyway, it will be good to watch them, and to think...
~Helena*