Thank You For Not Peeing On My Foot
I have discovered people actually claim people like wolves claim territory.
Now, it’s not as overt as one might think. It’s actually disturbingly subtle.
I think maybe I have been territorialized—Aw jeez! I suddenly smell funny.
Is my head shaped like a fire hydrant?
Do my legs look like trees?
Am I standing in a field of clover lookin’ like an outhouse?
Who let the dogs out?
There is plenty of literature about romantic notions in regard to relationships that incorporate words like “My” love, “My” soul mate, ‘My” friend… the possessive alleviates the anxiety of potential loss and this is the stuff that creates romance—this my, my, my.
It surprises me that a person can be suddenly set adrift on an iceberg when they don’t allow themselves to be Myed.
This does not portend well for any true bond that may have been established in a vacuum of me and you.
I’m kind of an all of us sort of gal. I like sharing “my” people with other people.
I know there are rules about intimate relationships, loyalty, monogamy and other such things that constitute mating as an agreeable endeavor with the benefit of security for the family unit.
I am almost beyond mating season and I don’t really run with wolves (especially wolves that pee on things or people). I’m a bit averse to the odor of urine.
There is a way to relate to others without claiming them like they are an accessory to self, a reflection of the claimer, or a social commodity.
I am not talking about those relationships that evolve naturally where one develops and commits to the well being of another, where one is perfectly satisfied with the sole company of that other, or the ensuing comfort and familiarity of compatability.
Those are all good things. Those things do not flourish in the kind of claiming I am talking about.
This claiming of which I speak is more akin to an insecurity that cultivates jealousy, false heroics, and personal gratification at the expense of the claimed.
It’s got nothin’ to do with love.
It’s got everything to do with competitive victor over the spoils of another human being.
I have had life moments where this issue has made me feel the chill of standing barefoot on an iceberg because I took my shoes off on account of they had pee on them.
I am thankful for this lesson. I will remember to wear my goulashes when trekking through wolf country.
LEA KELLEY SAYING THANK YOU FOR... 
funny how we claim things that were never ours in the first place…
it kinda reminds me of that cute Volkswagen commercial where the guy at the VW dealership licked the doorknob of the car he wanted so nobody else would take it.
of course, if that had been on an iceberg, his tongue would have gotten stuck.
…be careful what you lick on a iceberg.
“How to handle a woman?
There’s a way,” said the wise old man,
“A way known by ev’ry woman
Since the whole rigmarole began.”
“Do I flatter her?” I begged him answer.
“Do I threaten or cajole or plead?
Do I brood or play the gay romancer?”
Said he, smiling: “No indeed.
How to handle a woman?
Mark me well, I will tell you, sir:
The way to handle a woman
Is to love her…simply love her…
Merely love her…love her…love her.” (Richard Burton)
The concepts of ownership in relationships have always puzzled me a bit, as I am someone who does not need to be leashed in order to stay. You made me chuckle, though, realizing that I have never in my life introduced an SO as “my” anything. “This is Ellen,” I’ll say (or whatever her name happens to be). Either people get that we’re together, or they don’t. The important thing is that I know we are, and so does she.
Real wolves don’t pee on people, don’t play mind games and don’t get wrapped up in their heads.