WWDDD?

My mother called me yesterday to ask me to come over and fix her printer.  O.K.  She had not used it in  months, so the heads were clogged.  I put it through cleaning cycle after cleaning cycle trying to clear them until the ink ran out.

"Where do you get ink?" she asked me.

"At the ink store," I said.

She stared at me.

"I'll get some tomorrow."

"Jan says I should just go down and buy another one.  She says I don't need this one.  I just need one that prints black and white, she said."

It was a voice I'd heard all my life.  Growing up, I was always told what I didn't need.  I got what I needed.  You don't need this, you don't need that.  Soon life is reduced to a ravaging minimum.

"No, mom, you don't need any of this.  I want more than what I need.  I want all the things that I don't need.  I want art and literature and music.  I want my life to be full of luxuries.  Rather, my life is full of things I don't want."

I shouldn't talk to my mother that way, of course.  In truth, I am being buried by things I don't need.  I'm becoming like the little rat that kept hitting the pleasure button and forgot to eat.  And we all know how that turned out.

It is dangerous to give yourself permission.

I had gotten a text earlier in the day that said:

"As always, I had a wonderful time.  I can come next Friday."

That's what happens when there is nobody to tell you "no."