Reeling in Mama

8/4/09

'Do you want to go out with him? Check yes or no.' "Hmmm,” I thought. I pondered this question as I stared at the white lined paper with its ruffled edge clearly ripped from the pages of someone's spiral notebook. I picked up my purple pen and wrote in my response. Maybe.

Since 13, I have been walking the line. One foot on each side of the fence. Hedging my bets. I think it is my unyielding, need for order, not adept at going with the flow persona as indicated by a popular personality survey. It’s the only part of the survey where I clearly choose a side. In most other categories, I teeter between the worlds of being a "thinker" or a "feeler". Or as I like to call it the worlds of Decisive Diva and Can't Make Up Her Mind Momma. However, I find myself frequently caught just a little too far on the feeling side when it comes to my relationships. I make decisions with my heart rather than my head. I travel so far past the middle that I almost forget how to be as direct as I can be.

With my Decisive Diva on one shoulder, I can make clear, decisive, logical decisions when it comes to work and such But when the stakes are high and my ego, or in more extreme situations, my heart, is what's on the table, Can’t Make Up Her Mind Mama pushes Decisive Diva off my shoulder and begins whispering her tainted nothings into my ear, catapulting me down a path of indecision. She tells me that to choose means I am subject to the possibility of the Worst Case Scenario, but to remain ambivalent leaves me in “control.”

Fortunately, I started to realize that this adolescent, teetering, non-committal method just wasn't working for me and that perhaps not making up my mind was just a sign that something wasn’t quite right. Many women do this very thing and for the same reasons. When reflecting on her relationships with her current love interest as well as with her ex, Mandy, 29, concludes, “Indecision in relationships is like a caution sign. I don’t think there is major indecision when it’s truly right.” With Mandy’s ex, she found herself in a constant state of uncertainty whereas with her current guy, there is no hesitation.

My conversation with Mandy made me ponder a past relationship with a guy named Jason. After being with Jason for a few months, I knew I needed to make some decisions about where it was all going. I was hesitant, but because I really wanted to be with him, Can’t Make Up Her Mind Mama swooped in and allowed me to make excuses for his bad behavior and focus disproportionately on his good behavior. This was definitely in contrast to other situations with guys I only sorta kinda wanted to be with. In those cases, Decisive Diva totally took over and swiftly severed ties. From this, I could only draw the conclusion that my indecision with Jason was definitely a caution sign. I further concluded that this behavior, on my part, was something that needed to change. And, as any good self help book, leading psychologist, or psych major will tell you, the first step to change is admittance.

So, I started with acknowledging the behavior. As I thought about it a little more deeply, I figured out that regardless of whether I stood on the fence or jumped to a side, the end result would be the same. If it was meant to be, it would be. Since I was always an advanced student, I figured I could skip a couple of steps in my modified 12 step program to where I learn to live a new life with a new behavior and help others who also suffer from my same compulsion, which is where you find me now: ready, willing, and able to try. I'm ready to embrace the way Carla, 30, approaches her relationships. Even when she truly cares about a guy, if she knows they are not the one, she ends it rather than playing the ‘should I or shouldn’t I’ game.

Since this revelation, I haven't had the chance to allow Decision Diva to reel in Can’t Make Up Her Mind Mama a bit more. However, I’m confident that when faced with the grown up version of 'check yes or no’ in which the notebook paper has been replaced with a text message, the purple pen with a Blackberry, and the question is about Thursday night drinks or something more serious, I will confidently, and decisively, choose either 'yes' or 'no' and let 'maybe' linger behind the scenes with my Mama.