6/17/15, “The Way We Get By”
New York, New York
So much of what we do in life can be categorized as the way we get
by. The title of tonight’s entry comes
from a play I saw last night, possibly the best play I’ve ever seen. In it, the two characters wake up in the
middle of the night after drunkenly sleeping together and spend an hour and a
half arguing if they should sleep together again. Halfway through, we learn they are step
siblings, and they have always had feelings for each other, but they have
pushed aside the feelings because that’s “the way we get by.” It is a line that has stuck with me for the
past day now.
Take the dead-end job, and I’m not talking about my job here or anyone I
know. We stay at that job because that’s
the way we get by. We don’t have any
other options or we’re too lazy to look for another job or we are afraid of
change. That’s the way we get by. Doing work we find boring or working for an
abusive boss, we grin and bear because that’s the way we get by. Then, when people ask us about our job, we
tell them how much we love it, we lie enough so that one day we might believe
it. Why do we do it? Because it’s the way we get by.
The same is true of a dead-end
relationship. We stay in it because it’s
the way we get by. We hope that maybe
the good will outweigh the bad or we just so desperately want to be with
someone, with anyone, that we stay in the relationship. That’s the way we get by. Or you have a friend you like as more than a
friend, but you don’t say or do anything about it. You could have been in love with her from the
moment you met her, or maybe you developed feelings after knowing her for a
year. Either way, you are afraid of
losing the friend, so you keep quiet, you let the feelings fester. Why do we do that? Because it’s the way we get by.
People look at all the good in their life,
and they think, that’s what makes me happy.
The sum total of the good things in your life is often what makes you
happy (though I prefer to derive my happiness from the way I feel about the
person I am). We are so afraid of losing
any of those things in our life that make us happy that we, well, Disney
reference, never look to see what’s waiting just around the riverbend. We choose the smoothest course. Why?
Because that’s the way we get by.
We say of our friend, “She’s like a sister to me,” and we hope that, if
we say it enough, we might believe it ourselves, because that’s the way we get
by. I have written in other entries how I
believe saying, “I don’t think of her that way,” without giving specific
reasons why you believe a relationship with her would not work is the biggest
load of bullshit anyone ever offers. We offer that line because that's the way we get by.
Beth and Doug have had these feelings since they were 13. They did not act on them because they were
step siblings, so they were afraid people would judge. They repressed their feelings because that’s
the way we get by. We accept the small
bad instead of risking the larger bad because that’s the way we get by. In life, we often do what is comfortable and
what is easy, and we do it for one simple reason: because that’s the way we get
by.
