An oddly nice day

I was so weary at the start of the day, from all of the hassles of the week, and the successful completion of my daughter's car search yesterday didn't diminish the dread I had for how today was likely to go. I felt out of control of things, like I wasn't going to be able to make the choices I wanted to in order to spend the day as I preferred.

As it turns out, I wasn't, and that was okay.

Sometimes we just need to let the things we're dreadfully anticipating be - or not be - and just go with the results. The decisions we make in that emotional dynamic, and our resulting experiences, are very different from what we receive - what we're open to - when we wrap ourselves tightly around our inability to make things as we desire them to be.

Today's words

stichomythia \stik-uh-MITH-ee-uh\ - dialogue especially of altercation or dispute delivered by two actors in alternating lines (as in classical Greek drama)

I probably learned this word, once, briefly, in my college Classics class, which was one of three non-engineering/science classes I had left to take when I got to WSU.

troglodyte \TRAH-gluh-dyte\ - 1. a member of any of various peoples (as in antiquity) who lived or were reputed to live chiefly in caves  2. a person characterized by reclusive habits or outmoded or reactionary attitudes

Here's one I knew by meaning, if not precisely by definition. 

 fustigate \FUSS-tuh-gayt\ - 1. to beat with or as if with a short heavy club   2. to criticize severely

Oh, please, please fustigate me!

WOTD was rife with new words while I was on vacation - though the first one is today's.

Today's words

Wow.  I just realized that I haven't checked the WOTD since before vacation!  So, to begin the catching up:

orotund \OR-uh-tund\ adj. - 1. marked by fullness, strength, and clarity of sound : sonorous  2. pompous, bombastic

Put together the roots of oral and rotunda and this word makes perfect sense.

cachinnate \'KA-kih-,nate\ - to laugh loudly or immoderately

I probably either know this one or entered it before. I keep seeing it in the WOTD listing instead of the actual word it links to, berceuse, which I covered in my last (and lengthiest) "words" post.

exiguous \ig-ZIG-yuh-wus\ - excessively scanty : inadequate

I'd have never guessed at this one. The etymology in the WOTD write-up is pretty interesting. and even having seen it, I'm sure to mispronounce the first syllable if I'm ever given the opportunity to read it aloud, though I hope the context would likely remind me of its meaning.

Enough for today.

The importance of time

Don't get me wrong: I'm praying quite often. That's not nearly the same thing as what I'm talking about.

That was then

In the past, my bride inevitably suffered by comparison to, well, pretty much everyone else in my life, but especially my female friends. Always. I'm still chagrined to recognize that a main purpose of these friendships was for my wife to suffer in comparison to them. What I'd share with my close friends was almost never about her, yet that sharing formed the basis for my comparisons. When I would complain about her - with good cause or not - or, more often, simply lament that we were unable to share together in the same way as I could in these friendships, I'd usually find a sympathetic ear, and as a result my emotions often went in a direction that I should never have allowed. This caused my bride much pain in the short term, and myself in the long term the loss of good friends.

The core cause of this dynamic, of course, was my own insecurity. Deep inside, I knew I wasn't a good person, and all of the dynamics of growing up in an alcoholic home and experiencing parental suicide and sexual abuse were at work in me to reinforce that inner knowledge. But it was all a deeply buried secret, most of all to me, so I needed continual evidence to the contrary. This was most easily available in the form of my perceived superiority to my constant foil, my bride.

Today, as a result of a lot of hard work and thanks to the loving grace I've received from so many, first and foremost my dear wife, my own self-concept is very different, which has made all the difference. I still have to be on the lookout against my inferiority/superiority dynamic, because I still deal with a significant amount of self-judgment, but I'm aware of it as I was not before. Since I no longer need to elevate myself at my wife's expense to resolve a cognitive dissonance between my conscious and unconscious images of myself, I'm now able to have a close friend for friendship's own sake, rather than as a means to make up for what I secretly believed to be lacking in myself.

I still have road to walk, but it's a way smoother road.

Paternal nostalgia

When coworkers are comparing notes on what their daddy always told them, I suppose it's best for me not to chime in with my version Or even think about what that would be.

Final days in Hawai'i (text added)

This cutie was beached for almost the whole time we were there on Thursday afternoon. I saw a couple of her buddies up close, in the water about a quarter mile along the beach, too.