Thinking Makes It So

William Shakespeare said, "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." All day long, that quotation has run through my mind, and it runs hand in hand with Liz Gilbert's idea of controlling our thinking and not allowing our thoughts to control us, as presented to her by "Richard from Texas" in her memoir.

As I mowed the grass tonight (prime time to peruse the thoughts), I kept thinking about how disassociated my aerobics teacher stays, by choice, in order for him to expend his energies and attention on what he chooses instead of risking heartbreak by allowing himself to be "weak" (his word) or vulnerable (mine) by hyperinvolving himself with others. Blasphemy, my Italian ideology cried. Smart, insisted my post-divorce perspective. Is it so wrong for him to be like that? Would it be wrong for me to emulate him and thus avoid future heartbreak? Ah, there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Then I think about relocating my pet whom I loved, I think about my husband walking out, I think about throwing in the educational towel and going to law school or doing something else totally different; if I'm going to live another fifty years, I've got the time. All of these events or possbilities are wrong only if I think it so? The demon of relativism joins hands with my carpe diem quotations, and then everything seems muddy again.

I think I liked being in a relationship with a man because, well, if he thought I was worthy of loving, then obviously, I was lovable, and that made me feel good. I was lovable; his thinking made it so. He was someone who chose to love me instead of having to love me, like my family. So as I pushed around the mower, I thought, why doesn't my own thinking count? What do I think?

What do I think?

Damn it, I've never thought about it. That's my assignment this week.