Fick - le

adjective

changing frequently, esp. as regards one's loyalties, interests, or affection

volatile, mercurial, capricious, faithless.

Antonym

Constant.

Fact is, it's a perfect word for me. I have a problem.

I think I get bored. I used to think it had to do with being wary of vulnerability, a method of self-protection I employed. While that may indeed be a component, I'm beginning to think that I may actually just be getting bored. I'm satisfied, sometimes blithe, and at ease for awhile, and then...BOOM...I'm suddenly tired of it all. Grass is always greener. ALWAYS. Shouldn't there be a point when I can look around and think, "Ah, yes...here I am, in the middle of an emerald field, where everything is yellow beyond its edges?" Instead, I am perpetually cursed to be wearing the green-tinted glasses of The Wizard of Oz, only to take them off the moment I set foot in an area I thought was green.

Hello, letdown.

A friend of mine once told me, "You're going to be a runaway bride." He was only half-kidding. I seem to have a gift for talking myself out of feeling. Any kind of feeling, good or bad. Similarly, I can also talk myself into feeling, if the methodical, logical part of my brain feels that some sort of sentiment ought to be in existence. So that means, I'm finding, that I keep a tally of occurrences in my mind: "good," "bad," "good," "bad." Then I weigh them next to one another, do some division, distribution, make ratios, and come out with a "How I Should Feel Now." It's actually kind of pathetic. I don't know why I can't let my feelings do their thing. I was born with a perfectly good set, I'm sure. And yet... Plus, my imagination can always dream up some scenario that's better, and realistically-speaking, I can't run through every possible "better" scenario over the course of one lifetime. It's just not feasible. Or possible. Period.

So, whenever my emotions aren't strong enough to commandeer the rest of my brain, I automatically slip into an analytical state bent on determining how I ought to feel. Not how I do feel, but how I should feel. It's really irritating. I have to learn how to LET myself feel. HOW to feel, even. I think I might have forgotten.

Problematic.

I'm sorting it out very slowly. Piece by piece. Like doing a jig-saw puzzle with the pieces upside-down. I can only go off of what fits with what - I have no contextual colors to help me along. And eventually, I'll have to sort out the matter of perspective.

There was a story in one of those Chicken Soup for the Soul books about a teacher who had two students in his class who couldn't agree on anything. Ever. Eventually, he got tired of the arguing, and one day, before class, he brought the two students up to his desk and had them stand on either side of a ball.

"What color is the ball?" He asked them.

"White," said one student.

"Black!" said the other, just as adamantly.

The two of them looked at one another like each was insane. Obviously the ball was white (or black), they were looking at it. The teacher had them switch places.

He asked them again, "What color is the ball?"

The first student was forced to say, "Black." The second, "White."

Half the ball was white, while the other half was black. The teacher's point in all this was to teach perspective, that there wasn't always a right or wrong answer to a question, a right or wrong observation of a situation. And I'm finding the same thing with respect to people. Get a little distance from someone, and suddenly you're wondering if they're who you thought they were. For better or for worse. Funny how "You're the apple of my eye" can so quickly turn into "You're a pompous ass; how did I miss it?" So then I have to assimilate all of that into my equation.

One of these days, I won't have an equation. I'll just have a reaction that I can trust.