Living in Bolivia (Anything Box B-Side)
Oct. 16th, 2010 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rickvsI followed a link to this discussion recently:
http://www.fluentself.com/blog/stuff/bolivia/
...and you know, I think there may be more than one layer to that conversation.
My comment to it is here:
http://www.fluentself.com/blog/stuff/bolivia/#comment-24248
Feel free to jump in if it piques your interest.
**** my text copied for archive purposes ****
My wife keeps saying we should go to Bolivia, but she agrees it may be for the wrong reasons. She’s stubborn, you see, which is sometimes a good thing, and sometimes not so much.
She’s had medical issues for a while, and the doctors tell her she may not be able to make the trip without major assistance. This gets her dander up, and when she talks about going to Bolivia, she focuses less on how wonderful life is supposed to be there or how happy the other folks are who have gone, and more on how wonderful of a Bolivian she thinks I’d make, and how she owes it to her parents to go.
Her only sibling (and older sister) is unlikely to make the trip either, so she feels that it’s up to her. Apparently, not only has her mother visited Bolivia, but her mother’s mother also — and so on, for as many generations as I’ve been able to track. So my wife has imposed this pressure on herself despite not being a big fan of Bolivian food, or Bolivian sports, or the lack of regular naps for adults in the Bolivian culture.
Me, I could take or leave Bolivia, except for the part where I’m not sure we have the resources to see my wife’s favorite doctors while learning a new language. Plus she’d have to lay off some of her more useful medications during the first few months of the trip. And I’d want us to have greater motivations than my indifference and her trying to fulfill the (perceived) expectations of other people before we go to all the trouble of packing and hopping on the plane.
I think if there weren’t any hurdles to her making the Bolivia trip, she’d probably choose not to make it, but since the universe is trying to make the decision for her, she’s finding it pretty hard to throw away the brochures.
http://www.fluentself.com/blog/stuff/bolivia/
...and you know, I think there may be more than one layer to that conversation.
My comment to it is here:
http://www.fluentself.com/blog/stuff/bolivia/#comment-24248
Feel free to jump in if it piques your interest.
**** my text copied for archive purposes ****
My wife keeps saying we should go to Bolivia, but she agrees it may be for the wrong reasons. She’s stubborn, you see, which is sometimes a good thing, and sometimes not so much.
She’s had medical issues for a while, and the doctors tell her she may not be able to make the trip without major assistance. This gets her dander up, and when she talks about going to Bolivia, she focuses less on how wonderful life is supposed to be there or how happy the other folks are who have gone, and more on how wonderful of a Bolivian she thinks I’d make, and how she owes it to her parents to go.
Her only sibling (and older sister) is unlikely to make the trip either, so she feels that it’s up to her. Apparently, not only has her mother visited Bolivia, but her mother’s mother also — and so on, for as many generations as I’ve been able to track. So my wife has imposed this pressure on herself despite not being a big fan of Bolivian food, or Bolivian sports, or the lack of regular naps for adults in the Bolivian culture.
Me, I could take or leave Bolivia, except for the part where I’m not sure we have the resources to see my wife’s favorite doctors while learning a new language. Plus she’d have to lay off some of her more useful medications during the first few months of the trip. And I’d want us to have greater motivations than my indifference and her trying to fulfill the (perceived) expectations of other people before we go to all the trouble of packing and hopping on the plane.
I think if there weren’t any hurdles to her making the Bolivia trip, she’d probably choose not to make it, but since the universe is trying to make the decision for her, she’s finding it pretty hard to throw away the brochures.
