Thoughts.com Blogs - A Winding Road & Objective Perspective

Somewhere between here and Tennessee my best friend and her husband are on the road. They are going to her son’s wedding. The bride and groom will Honeymoon in Gatlinburg, TN. For some reason they decided it would be a good idea to force all of their friends and family to drive down to TN for the wedding.

Maria is crushed. She has been crying for months. And to make things worse, her new daughter-in-law decided to have the wedding on Mother’s day. I see very difficult things ahead for them. Maria bought a “family plan” cell package. She has purchased a phone for herself, husband, son and daughter-in-law.

I try to imagine what it would feel like to be in that girls shoes. Your mother-in-law gets your cell phone bill. She knows how many minutes you’ve used and who you’ve been talking to. Your mother-in-law paid cash for the house you live in- you get to pay her rent. Your mother-in-law has done the majority of the work to the house you live in. Turning her nose up at the colors you have selected for your walls.

I know this is hard for Maria. Donnie is an only child. But he is 27 years old. At some point, she needs to cut the cord here.

I worry about her. I told her this was a new chapter in her life. She has spent her whole life taking care of other people. Now, she will have time to do the things she has always wanted to do. I tired to encourage her to think of a list of those things during the wedding. She will cry. She has taken tomorrow off as a vacation day.

She told me she intends to go to the doctor and ask to be taken off of work- she wants to go out on stress leave. Because her 27 year old son, is getting married, and has finally decided to move out of her house….into the other house that she owns….right down the street from her.

It is funny how easy it is to be objective when it isn’t you. It is easy to come up with solutions to problems where your heart isn’t the one being torn out. We all see the trials and conflicts that other people are going through and we can immediately point out the self-inflicted ones.

I am hopelessly in love with a man that uses me- and does not love me back. I know this thing. I have tired to move on….objective people who have no stake in the outcome have encouraged me to move on. But it is not their heart that is hurting….they do not have to carry the pain.

Ultimately the heart wants what it wants. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else. We are the one’s that have to face our own demons. We are the one’s that have to come up with our own solution…our own non-objective solution to our problems. No one else can fix these things for us. The Heart that bares the hurt is the heart that makes the choice.