Reckless behavior. Why does it exist? What is it that drives people to make poor decisions that will ultimately lead to their own failure?
I think it could be that it doesn't seem like the wrong decision at the time, it is just the one that will make you feel like you are actually living, alive. It's not until the aftershock of the consequences that you realize that it was in fact, reckless behavior.
A quote that has been floating around on the net today was this among others from the late Elizabeth Taylor:
“The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.”
I agree with this statement wholeheartedly. Mainly because I lived with it for a good portion of my childhood.
The other night I found myself in one of those deep, slightly alcohol-induced discussions with my roommate in which we were attempting to pinpoint what it was about our childhoods that lead to us being such fuck ups. (Luckily we are the self-aware types, so there is hope for us yet.) And I have to say that for me, it always comes back to one person: my oh so virtuous, bible-humping stepmother. This woman turned into something else once she married into a family consisting of a constantly depressed and insecure husband and his two children from a previous marriage to a woman who is her complete opposite. But you know what, she had no vices! That's what she would have you believe anyway, hiding behind her bible verses and calm voice so people could not see what was really there: jealousy, hate and judgment. Passive aggressive behavior was her game, and it drove me nuts for years.
But I was a good kid. A really good kid. I got excellent grades, had good friends, went to a youth group, even joined the freakin' Girl Scouts. I never talked back, I never lied. But something about the way this woman treated us over the years drove me to something else...drove me to say "yes" as much as possible because I was sick of hearing "no". No, your father does not love you as much as he loves his wife, it's in the bible. No, you can't go out and play you have hours of chores to do. No, you can't have a new choir dress, your mom buys all the clothes even though she pays us child support (which we use on our children, the ones I actually love). No, your mom is not a good person.
So I said yes to peer pressure, I said yes to boys [and by this I don't mean a lot of boys, I mean the wrong ones] and I concentrated on all the wrong things because I wanted to be as far from the person she was as possible. I wanted to feel alive, so I chose reckless behavior.
It made sense at the time, but now here I am: wondering how I managed to F things up this much. I could compare my life to the tragic ones those in Japan are now living but somehow I just feel that if a tsunami came crashing down on me, I would just close my eyes, open my arms and let the waves take me away.
