Fighting with Tom, the Goat Hoarder

Tom and I had a fight last night.  As our fights go, it was pretty stock standard.  I had been quietly stewing away for a number of days about the prospect of getting yet another goat.  We had enough animals, I thought, and I was beginning to worry that Tom had developed an addiction to procuring more and more.  He was becoming an animal hoarder, I was sure of it.  My fear of an ‘Animal Farm’ style goat revolt was at boiling point, so, with 15 minutes to go before Footy Classified, I made my move.  

‘Tom,’ I ventured, ‘I really don’t think we should get another goat.’

‘What!  Why?’  

‘How can we afford to keep all these extra animals?’  My voice was already cracking.      

‘But it’s a free goat!  And we need it for breeding.  Sooky and Sook don’t have any balls!  You know that!  And anyway we’re giving Lucy away soon.’  It was Tom’s turn to get exasperated.

He had a point, I guess.  But now I was fired up.  ‘You’ve always got an excuse to get more goats!  When are you going to stop?  I think you’re becoming a GOAT HOARDER!’

Tom rolled his eyes in mockery.  ‘I am not.  You always have to pathologize everything I do.’ 

At this point it occurred to me that maybe we didn’t have that many goats and maybe my fears were unfounded, but I just felt like yelling a bit more.  ‘Well, you better not get any more!  And don’t think I’ll be helping to round them up if they all jump the fence into Rob’s property again!’

‘I won’t!’  Tom yelled.  ‘I don’t need your help anyway!’  

And then we had to stop fighting because Footy Classified was on and there is no topic in the whole wide world that is worth the fall if I were to talk over THAT.  I skulked off into the bedroom and looked at Facebook to calm down, and after a few minutes I felt refreshed and suitably placated as to the goat situation.  

Because, here’s the thing: I actually think that fights are good for Tom’s and my relationship.  If I had known two years ago that I’d be writing that I would have been sure I was on a one way trip to crazy town.  But our fights are very different than they were two years ago.  We are both reasonably heated people, with a fair bit of in built aggression, and we used to be really shit at handling that fact.  We’d get into these horrible rows where all either of us was trying to do was ‘win’, which basically meant making the other person feel like shit.  We would let our hot heads get the better of us, and achieve less than zero.  We’d both walk away from those fights angrier than we’d started out, and take hours to cool off afterward.  Those fights were, of course, not good for our relationship. 

But we’ve done a lot of growing up, and somehow, we’ve learned to ‘have it out’ in a way that’s satisfying to both of us.  We get to scream and yell and release the aggression valve, but we’ve worked out how to do that and listen to each-other at the same time.  There is usually a conclusion.  We get somewhere.  For some people, a talk is a good way to get things off their chest.  And don’t get me wrong, we do talk.  But being the people that we are, sometimes we just need to let off some steam and have a good old yell.  

These days, I usually feel better after a row.  It cuts through any tension that’s been building, goes some way to sorting out the problem, and gives us a fresh slate.     

   

It’s too bad society has to label certain, entirely natural, emotions, ‘bad’.  Anger is totes normal.  Yet we’re told that if we express it in our relationship, we’ve got problems.  Wouldn’t it be better if we were taught how to be angry at each-other in a constructive way?  Otherwise we’re trying to stifle something that is inevitably going to arise, and that can only make us feel like shit.  As long as we establish boundaries with our partners, I reckon a good blow up once in a while is healthy.            

Alcoholics Anonymous and the Catharsis of Sharing

Being a writer is really just an excuse to be invasively voyeuristic, and to almost get away with it.  I have never been able to contain my urges to stare, open mouthed, into the lives of others, enthralled by any secret details I can deduce from witnessing their candid moments.  As a child, on the odd occasion that my incessant noise-making fell silent, Mum would head straight for my bedroom.  There, I would be perched on the top bunk gawking through the window, utterly entranced by the goings on in my neighbours’ kitchen.  Mum loves to remind me how, when engaged in said activity, I would be so enthralled that my mouth would be hanging open, drool dripping onto the mattress like a forgotten leaky tap.  (Writing this blog has made me acutely aware of the glut of bodily fluids I have excreted over my life time, but hey, I missed the lady-like bus a long time ago.)    

So anyway, in conclusion to this most tenuous of segues, my uncontrollable urge to peep into people’s affairs led me this week into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.  The person I went with shall, surprise surprise, remain anonymous.  It was great.  It was so awesome.  People spilled their deepest, darkest moments and I got to listen.  (An aside- I hope no one thinks I’m making light of the devastating impacts of alcoholism.  It’s a debilitating disease that I’ve lost a wonderful aunty to, and I think sufferers deserve far more recourses and support.  The atmosphere in the room was, however, one of hope and camaraderie, and I therefore feel it’s ok to present my experience in a positive light.  I did also check with the compare that my attendance- in moral support of a friend- was appreciated.) 

I was floored by the honesty that was flowing from the speakers.  An unguarded, cathartic sort of honesty that, disappointingly, is missing from most of our lives.  It was immediately obvious that, for the speakers, to tell their stories was to purge the guilt and shame that had arisen from them.  It was also a harrowing experience.  A young woman, shaking and close to tears, recalled the time she had squeezed through a window of her mother’s house and scrambled, scaling picket fences, to the bottle shop, where she stole a cask of wine.  An older man described flying into a drunken rage and chasing his son from the house, screaming at him to never come back.  A hardened looking fellow in an akubra, the sort of man fabled to be devoid of emotions entirely, held back tears as he remembered the hurt he has inflicted on a weary family. 

All these people had crossed lines they never thought they would cross.  But in that room, they had the chance to be understood, sympathised with, and to expel the pain they had, for years, inflicted upon themselves. 

For all the tears, this was one of the most positive experiences I’ve had.  I felt privileged to be in direct observation of the strength of these people’s spirits, the catharsis they derived from opening up, and the communion of the unconditionally accepting group.  But it also made me sad- and not just for the horrors that the speakers had endured.  It made me sad that this level of honesty is missing from most of our lives. 

How many of us walk around shouldering the burden of secrets?  Things we’re ashamed of, that we’re disgusted by, that we fear telling people lest they think less of us?  I’m lucky enough to be in a relationship with someone who is incredibly understanding, and who I know will respect me no matter what.  So I’ve unloaded my secrets, the things I thought I would guard forever, on him.  It may seem a trivial thing but, like the people in the AA meeting, letting go of my secrets lifted an enormous weight.  A weight that had been impacting my life in ways far more dramatic than I’d dared to realise.

The meeting taught me that, when people are brave enough to offer up something as genuine and real as pure honesty, those around them will respond in kind, with the same type of pure compassion.  It needn’t be to a room of onlookers, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could all get the chance to do this?  To let go of those things we have been carrying around.  I dare you to try it.