How Eric Grew Beyond Ego
Avoiding Toxic Individuals
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“What a great shade of red!” Eric remarked to Erin, patting the arm of the red, gold, and beige sofa he was sitting on. Nine-year-old Vicky, her daughter, stood quietly nearby.
“Pardon?” Erin asked from her rocking chair.
“I like this hint of red in your couch,” he clarified, still struggling with his war-time brain injury and the resulting sloppy speech. “Great job of decorating.”
“Oh, I thought you said, ‘Want to go to bed?’” Erin interrupted, her eyes twinkling. Her face broke into a broad smile.
“No-o-o ...,” Eric replied in disbelief, pounding the cushion. “I said I like this red.”
Erin’s laughter filled the room. Vicky nervously watched Eric, curling a strand of her long black hair. Eric wondered how a mother could be so open about that misunderstanding in front of her child. He and Erin had only known each other a couple of months.
“When did you do all this?” Eric asked, expanding on his original comment to change the subject.
“A couple of weeks ago...”
“Jamie wants me to come over and play with her trains,” Vicky finally broke in.
“Fine,” Erin approved. Vicky skipped to the door. “Back in an hour?”
“Yeah,” Vicky answered.
“Our neighbor’s daughter is heavy into model railroading.”
“Well, that’s refreshing,” Eric chuckled. “I usually associate scaled-down trains with 60-year-old men.”
They didn’t fit the norm as a couple, either. Erin was Jewish, a single mother, able-bodied and carefree. Eric was a single, never-married German Lutheran, disabled and uptight — a long-recuperating Vietnam veteran. But they were both seasoned anti-war demonstrators and public relations professionals, which is how they met.
They shared a bond, too: a basic need to deal with reality on their own terms.
“Why do you spend time with a cripple?” Erin’s mother had asked her, a revelation Erin shared with Eric on their most-recent date.
“The same people who taught us the alphabet,” Eric observed loftily, “reflect an earlier generation’s norms that may not mesh with today’s reality.”
“She’s out of it,” Erin lamented.
“Maybe not,” Eric assured her. “A family’s skeletons are always best left in the closet. Members of the family who happen to be eccentric ... disabled. We all have skeletons. They hurt a family’s image.”
They both knew that some of the social norms of the 1950s were still alive in 1981. Eric was surprised, though, that Erin’s mother was more concerned about his physical condition than his non-Jewish heritage. He’d expected more contemporary attitudes from urban people.
What puzzled him more was when he discovered Erin had no grasp of the Christian concept of grace — that an individual receives what they don’t deserve.
After that second house visit, Erin and Eric gradually drifted apart, though they kept in touch. Six months later, Erin called and mentioned she was writing to an “extraordinary man,” Toby, who was about to get out of prison.
“Extraordinary?” Eric asked with a laugh.
“Yes,” she replied more seriously. “He’s a lawyer and a fantastic writer. We write to each other every day. He’s brilliant.”
Eric didn’t ask why he was in prison, but he was surprised to learn, not more than three months later, that Erin and Toby were married.
“We should get together,” Erin suggested over the phone. “Toby can’t practice law anymore, but we’ve formed our own advertising business here at home. We’re calling ourselves ‘T and E Brilliance.’ Isn’t that classy?”
Eric did visit. Erin was right: Toby was tall, dark, handsome, and brilliant. He showed Eric their basement office, outfitted with a computer, copier, and light table.
“As you can see, we’ve got the setup — and the brilliance — to do an extraordinary job for you,” Toby pitched, throwing his arm around Erin.
“You have a masters?” Toby asked as he climbed the steps behind Eric, positioning himself to catch Eric if he fell while returning to their living room.
“No,” Eric said meekly.
“Should take a look at it,” he urged. “May help in your circumstances.”
Eric went home, amused by how rapidly a person’s life can change.
Two days later, Erin called, again asking for his business. Eric wrote a formal business letter addressed to both of them, explaining in concrete terms why he thought T and E Brilliance was not the right fit for his company’s public relations needs.
Eric never heard from Erin or Toby again.
More than 40 years since, Eric recognizes a benefit of aging: it’s a time when an individual can move from feeding someone else’s ego to nurturing his or her own soul.
Eric’s takeaway tip from his story: Side-step those who gain a sense of self-worth by patronizing others.
Here’s to mature-adult living!
Jim Hasse, ABC, GCDF retired, author of “52 Shades of Graying”
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"More than 40 years since, Eric now recognizes that aging has at least one benefit. It's a time when an individual can move from feeding someone else’s ego to nurturing his or her own soul."
Puts me in mind of that famous poem by Jenny Joseph, Warning ("When I am an old woman I shall wear purple/ With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me."
I agree with Dr. Neil B. Shulman. In “Humor and Medicine,” he writes:
“Life is the dash between two numbers on a tombstone. So we should try to make that dash as joyous and healthy for ourselves as possible -- as well as help everyone else’s dash.”
But, sometimes, that’s so difficult.
I don’t remember much about my great uncles anymore, but one still stands out in my mind because he really needed psychological help – something not available in the 1950s in rural America.
In almost every conversation with family and friends, he would revert to his habit of bragging that his “this” and his “that” were “the best.” I avoided him whenever I could.
As a 13-year-old, I remember asking myself why he had become so narcissistic in a family of laid-back German Lutherans. I probably should have tried to find out more by listening to him more but, doing so, was exhausting.
* When have you successfully side-stepped a toxic individual?