I will name him George, and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him and love him forever!

Days 8

If you got the above title congratulations you had a charmed childhood or weren’t raised under a rock. If you did not get the reference I’m sorry your childhood sucked and you were probably raised watching cartoons that blow more than a hooker behind a liquor store on the seedy side of town. This title relates to one of my favorite Looney Tune characters, Hugo the Abominable Yeti Snowman. Hugo is a gentle giant who finds Daffy Duck and thinks he’s the cutest little pink rabbit ever, mistaking his pink sleeves for bunny ears. He picks him up and pets him and pats him and damn near squeezes him to death while Daffy screams, I’m not a bunny rabbit! Daffy then does what he does best he throws poor Bugs Bunny under the bus. He offers Hugo a real bunny rabbit if he’ll just put him down, and he leads him to Bugs, who then finds himself suddenly being loved to death by the affectionate beast.

I think I might change my name to Hugo. I already look like him when I wake up most mornings, I might as well make it official. I can put a sign around my neck that says, hi my name is Hugo and I smother people. I don’t smother in a pillow over the head while you sleep psychotic way, but in an overly sweet obsessive perfectionist way. I think wanting to be around your significant other is good, I mean who wants to be in a relationship where you are avoiding the person and can’t stand to be around them? But the all day and all night textathons stop being enduring and become a full time job at some point. When I get into a relationship I want things to be perfect and that’s a good thing, obsessing on it however not such a good thing. So how do you find the right balance between loving someone a lot but not loving them to death?

I was in Denver a few years ago with a boyfriend and we were having problems. He was going through a stressful time in his life and since he couldn’t take his frustration out on most of the people causing it, he would just come home and be mean to me. I was the proverbial dog he got to come home and figuratively kick. I kept trying to make things better overly trying to communicate and be the perfect girlfriend. He kept saying just let me work though this stop trying to talk it to death give me space and time and things will be fine. But I don’t like tension or week long grudges, I wanted things fixed immediately and I kept excessively trying, and it was just pushing him further and further away. I’m sure the right thing to do would've been to find a healthy middle ground between too much space and too much communication, but we were both stubborn and not willing to budge. One day in Denver things were especially tense so I went out exploring on my own to give him some space and happened across an art festival. I wondered into this photographer’s booth who travels the world taking pictures of extravagant graffiti. I was drawn to this picture of a big red brick wall on it was this giant hunched over a tiny little sprout. His one hand was tucked under his chin like he was waiting and pondering something, the other hand was poking at this small root poking through the ground. I asked the artist why it was the only picture that didn’t have a title scribbled on photo mat. He said if I gave him $65 I could name it whatever I wanted. I only collect art that has personal meaning and I had to have this piece of art because I’ve never seen a piece with more meaning. Metaphorically I was this giant, and the tiny sprout was all of my relationships. I gave him $65 and we named the piece “Nurture vs. Smother” which he wrote in pencil on the white mat. You can’t tell if this humongous humanoid was protecting the cultivation of the little bud or overwhelming its development to death.

I’m learning the perfect relationship is as fictional as the Abominable Yeti Snowmen and giants hunched over sprouting vegetation. I’ve probably lost a few relationships by trying to make things too perfect. I’m learning to let go of my perfectionist tendencies, because things can still work even if they are flawed. In fact sometimes blemishes in a relationship are beautiful and make you appreciate the strengths you share even more. Wanting to be with someone all the time is a good sign that person likes you, but autonomy is also good and a healthy part of a relationship. Independence shows that person is stable and doesn’t need a relationship, they want a relationship. I’m going to stop being some monstrous ogre smotherer and become a cute little pixie nymph nurturer instead in future relationships. Because nobody likes a clingy beastly bitch, unpretentious little fairies are far more desirable.