It appears I have become completely indecisive. I’m not even sure how it happened, I used to be very confident in my decision making. When I was in college I had a roommate who couldn’t make a decision to save her life. She would go to the mall alone, and return to our apartment with three different pairs of shoes, needing an opinion on which pair we thought she should keep. She then had to go back to the mall to return the other two pairs. I never understood what was so hard about picking a pair of shoes, and thought the whole process was very time consuming.
She was actually looking for validation that the choice she was making was the right one.
Last week, I was working in L.A. for the SAG Awards nominations announcement. When I go to L.A., it’s usually a whirlwind of a lot of work and a little downtime. I do contract work and usually end up working with a team of people I have worked with for over ten years. We’re like a well-oiled machine. We know each other pretty well, and we travel together a lot, which means we work together, we drink after work together, we stay in the same hotel; sometimes together. Basically, we have spent a lot of time with each other.
On this trip, I stayed with my friend Tarrah, and our friend Sophy also happened to be staying with her at the same time. We came home after being gone for most of the day, and having coffee by the ocean {very different from cake by the ocean.} Sophy immediately went into the kitchen to finish the dishes she had started that morning. Tarrah grabbed her iPad and was reading a book on the couch {it was my book! She needs to send me notes, so technically she was working,} and I still had my coat on trying to decide if I needed to do some work, help Sophy, watch football, or sit on the couch and read as well.
Sophy started laughing and said, “I think what’s happening right now is pretty indicative of our personalities. I’m helping, Tarrah’s working, and Angela’s not sure if she’s coming or going.”
It was true. And we all started laughing. Then I immediately started contemplating my life…
I have recently been told I send mixed signals in relationships. When I was talking to my therapist a few months ago about all of my relationships over the years, she asked if I had ever gotten any feedback, ex-husband aside, on what the issue is. Up until now, I hadn’t.
I send mixed signals in relationships because I’m scared of rejection, so if I’m in a different place then you are, I don’t want you to reject me. But then I end up getting rejected anyway, so I’m slowly learning it’s probably best to just say what I want and how I’m feeling.
My indecisiveness feels new, and there are times I’m very decisive, almost indifferent. While the opposite of love is indifference {according to the Lumineers,} I can see how mixed my signals can be.
But if you ask me on a Sunday afternoon in L.A. what I want to do, and I respond, “I want coffee by the ocean,” there’s nothing indifferent about that. Tarrah suggested a place we could get coffee, that was next to the ocean, and it was a bonus when we bumped into our other co-worker and his sweet little Vivienne heading to a Christmas pajama party. See how the universe works when you ask for exactly what you want? You’d think I’d know this by now, but it’s all a work in progress.
Talk Amongst Yourselves