Recovery

How Curious The Lessons I Learned Were Never Imparted To Others

I tell him:
Here is where the fork goes, which paint looks best, what to wear to this, what to say in response to a gift, here it how to turn down food twice before accepting a third time, here is how to be nice to someone who is not nice to you, here is how you clear the table, here is how you clear someone else's table, here is how you thank someone for dinner, for wine, for being there, here is how to state your opinion in a quiet and differential way so they will be more accepting, here is how to ask someone to do something and not be considered bossy, here is how to say "no" and not sound angry.

I tell him:
Watch her bag, you're in the way ; go get the door for that woman, she's carrying her baby ; there's a child behind you, don't step back ; you just cut in front of them, at least send them an apologetic look ; please tell that man to shut up, I am too small to punch him and I might if he keeps talking ; please tell that man to stop offering her drinks, she doesn't want any and he's not listening ; please please please call your friends out when they make jokes that would poison me.

He asks me how I keep everything straight.
He says "You're always so polite, always looking out for everybody." He asks me how I know how to run a house and a business and a party, how I know all of these small lessons in etiquette as if they were ingrained in me, how I weigh every situation I walk into in a fraction of an instant, how I always seem to know what to do.

And I love him dearly but I would love to live in a world where I would not have to know these things, I would love to leave messes wherever I went and expect that someone will clean them, to never worry that I'm drinking or eating or laughing or talking too much, I would love to be able to calm down at a bar and just talk instead of worrying that the girl next to me is too drunk to walk and that person creeping on her isn't letting her go home, I would love to be blind to the things that I know, I would love to be rude and loud and to take up the space that the mountain range in me wants to expand to.

But I tell him:
Here is how I survive. It is all that I know how to do.