Armored for battle

My daughters and I had a little bit of time yesterday morning, so we elected to spend it visiting the shopping mall around the corner.  Living on an island as we do, we don't generally have access to a wide variety of stores, so it's always fun to see what's out there, what's being sold, and how it's being merchandised.

We were particularly struck by the incongruity of this display: a pink suit of armor?  (Sorry; it was hard to get a good photo in the dim light, being jostled by the crowds).  The potential symbolism of it was just too amusing to ignore.

But now, of course, it's Thanksgiving, and family dynamics are coming into play; holiday challenges are beginning.  And I'm remembering a conversation with my girls yesterday in which one of them said, "I just wish I could see what the cousins are wearing before I dress for Thanksgiving dinner," which I found totally echoed my thoughts from the previous evening.

Why do we wish that?  Why is it so important to fit in, to dress like everyone else?  Why is it that we do not feel quite so comfortable choosing our own style and assuming that's appropriate?

Some of it could be put down to the fact that the other branches of the family all live in very urban settings, so they tend to dress in a more upscale fashion than we do.  Some of it is simply a longing to fit in, to be clearly an integrated part of the family: to dress as they dress implies we move in the same social strata, that we know what they know.

But it's also an issue around our own feelings of self-worth.  In a way, dressing like everyone else in the family is a way of putting on pink armor; making sure we are protected, but in a sort of less threatening, charming, softer way.  And why do we feel the need to be protected?  These are not deliberately cruel people; they seem genuinely fond of us and amused by the ways in which we differ from them.  And still...

The truth is, of course, that family history and personal history are always deeply intertwined, and the wounds and misunderstandings we carry from our earliest years have a way of haunting us throughout life.  But I found myself (in discussing a long-standing situation in the family with my husband this morning) describing again what I think of as "the tennis-ball theory" of relationships.  Which is simply this: if we think of the slings and arrows -- whether inadvertent or intentional -- that are hurled at us in the context of relationships as tennis balls, the fact is that if they hit a hard surface, they will hurt, AND they will bounce back with almost equal force.  But if they hit what is essentially a mattress, there's just a soft thud and then they roll to the floor.

The damage we do or that is done to us depends largely upon our own attitude and resistance.  If we put up our armor, fight back, take everything personally, the ball will keep bouncing back and forth, inflicting whatever damage it does.  But if we can soften and release and accept, the ball drops, no harm is done to either side, and a lot of the really difficult blow-ups can be avoided.

Of course this needs to be a two way street; you can't have one side always softening and the other side hurling ever harder, ever sharper weapons.  But someone has to be willing to step aside, to soften, or the conflict has no prayer of being resolved.

So what does this have to do with Thanksgiving, with that Norman Rockwell image of the loving family gathered around the turkey?  Maybe nothing.  And then again, maybe everything...