Colors

I imagine

the women of Paris

put on

yellow

green 

pink

purple

red

sweaters

when they are 

home

alone

Brat

I am going to Paris for New Year's. 

Go me!

I have some friends who are going to be there and asked if I wanted to join them. This trip is crazy short notice, but I thought "Why am I saying no to this?" 

The trip will be a blast, even if more than half of it is a solo trip as my friends connected with their own family and friends in Paris.

Anyway, I was talking to a friend tonight about my trip. She has family in Paris and travels there often. She saw in my Brat green coat, and gently and kindly reminded that women in Paris wear black and neutral. I forgot I was wearing my bright puffer jacket. I bought it last fall. I thought it was garish, but garish was exactly what I wanted. I wanted something that makes people's eye sore when they look at it as I bike to work. The bright color is also useful for crossing the street in the dark relative to my dark gray puffer. I didn't know it was Brat green until a friend told me last week. In the past year, I've gotten a surprising number of compliments on this jacket that I initially thought was ugly.

My friend is right about how Parisian women dress, and of course I want to look like a local. (When I was in Paris in high school, a french person asked me for directions, which--not gonna lie--was a highlight of my life.) 

Nevertheless...

I think I might wear my Brat jacket in Paris. Fuck it neutrals. Fuck black and beige. I've worn dark colors and neutrals my entire life. Who cares what the Parisians think of me? I mean, I'll be wearing my Brat coat over my dark gray dress and black leggings, so the rest of me will be wearing my french uniform. Ironically before the sartorial conversation, my friend and I were talking about embracing the messiness of life. "Life grows in the mud," she said. I'll take a page from our dinner conversation and go with the bold, the messy, the uncertain, the unpredictable. I'll go Brat.

Let's see what happens. If next season all of the Parisian women are wearing bright colors, you'll know where it started.

Tough Love Isn't Love

I heard about Rob Reiner's death where he and his wife were stabbed by his son, which is a horrific tragedy for everyone involved. I feel a special heartbreak for the surviving children who must mourn the loss of their parents and the reconcile the actions of their brother. I can only imagine.

Reiner's son had major mental health issues, and had them since he was a teen. Reiner had said in an interview that he regretted the tough love approach he took with his son, as that was what was advised to him at the time.

Having been deeply involved in mental health issues with my own family members--and my subsequent distress--I've learned that tough love isn't love. It is control.

Tough love is what people do when someone they purport to love isn't doing what they want them to do, so they "lay down the law" and a bunch of "or else's" to get what they want. That is control, and most people don't like to be controlled. The disappointed party manipulates, threatens, cries, screams, and whatnot so they can get the disappointee to break down and as the disappointed person wishes.

I get this is appealing when your kid has gone off the rails, and is completely unhinged, when you feel like there is nothing else you can do to keep the person you love from sliding down into substances, depression, anxiety, anger and depression. 

Instead of trying to control the person, we need to let go and detach with love and set boundaries that are clearly communicated. We can have consequences when our boundaries are violated. No one has to (or should) accept unacceptable behavior, but yelling and screaming and threatening has never cured someone someone with a major mental illness. At least not that I am aware of.

One of the most important thing I have learned is that my own need to control others very often gets me the opposite of what I want. No one wants to be controlled, but everyone wants to be seen and heard.