Mauvaise Foi

We came across these two words, we don't really remember where or why, but we bless her tendency for copying down random, obtuse phrases and statements by people that appeal to us. These two in particular mean to 'deny one's potential, to put up road blocks for the self, Self-limiting' and it so reminds us of her. It probably reminds her of it too.

She opens her notebook and it sits littered with scribbled quotes and mangled aphorisms by 'Shrieky Girl', 'Man in Third Row' and 'Kitchen dude'. One of them jumps off the page "Hurt?! Fuck it, then stuff it in a place it can never come back from" courtesy 'Really Loud Girl'. We hope she realizes that this really is her calling: to watch and translate. She has never really been a doer or even a be-er...she is simply a wistful watcher.
But she dreams, and that always causes her to drift away from the merits of sheer observation. That is also the precarious point where she gets lost in fantasies; where she is experiencing things for herself. If only she could be practical and stay off course. She could find contentment in the sidelines.
There are few who really see it, but she could.
She has always been that sort.

We fail to comprehend what compels her to fight so desperately with us on this. What elusive, frangible tendency drives her to try and inject herself in reality and what the rest of them call 'real life experience'? Are such trite, transient moments better than a chance at phantom immortality?

Quis custodient ipsos custodes?
Who will watch the watchers themselves?

Oh why can't she just find solace in solitude?! She craves it, she is comfortable with it, she is even complacent and content in her world of paper, pencils and pixels. Why then does she crave companionship so? What does it offer that she has not been able to give to herself? Perhaps she ought to try and fall, just to give up on it once and for all so that we can all be together again. But she just can’t seem to stop.
Many might call her perpetual tendency to weigh and water down every step and the taking of it as a good thing. Most tend to mistake innate, pathological insecurity with maturity and we know that she enjoys the notion that she is being confused as such. But it appears that she can no longer justify her propensity to prophesize doom in every semblance of emotional contact, even if we know that it will play out to that effect eventually. It really has nothing to do with maturity or cowardice - it is plain convenience on her part to run from her destiny. She is ungrateful, to disregard her loneliness in such a cavalier manner, merely for a few snippets of flattery and flirtation.
This is the point where her proclivity towards navigating the moral mathematics of every waking and sleeping moment needs to come into play, in a bad way... she needs to be told that her initial reservations were justified and that she will only find redemption in actively nurturing them.
If there is a basis in past experience for caution and reservation, then grasping for those very straws to avoid taking chances doesn't signal cowardly behavior …it signals common sense, we tell her. But she is tuning us out more and more these days.

The beginnings justify the means towards an end. And the Endings are predestined to tune into bad beginnings, we tell her...but she continues smiling her goofy grin in the mirror and is humming Dean Martin madness.

We come across mention of Cumean Sybil and immediately bring it to her attention - the mythic prophetess who guided Aneas towards Hades and is often regarded as a broker for destruction. We tell her that at present her faceless form is permanently camped at her right side whispering salacious everythings in her ear. 'TAKE HEED,' we tell her. But she has switched from Martin to Doris Day and we are beginning to lose patience with her in this flimsy, floopy state.

All her apprehensions will come into play as she tries to navigate this entirely new tangent in her life: Romance or something like it. We remind her that she is incapable of freely-given-feeling and emotional emendations. But she is brushing her hair and putting on lip gloss.

Beentherella is a force to contend with these days, standing on her pulpit commanding her newly instated mighty army to counter our seasoned legions with freshly woven posies of hope and happiness. She is egging her on. She shoots Sybil down with Browning's "Our interests on the dangerous edge of things. The Honest Thief, the Tender Murderer, the Superstitious Athiest."
"Honestly", we ask her..."What good could possibly come of this foolishness?"
But she is delirious. She has never had many winning moments with her, perpetually the middle child. Maria has been consistent at keeping her around the picture but never really part of it and right now she is drunk with triumph.
"Who cares," she says. She mentions Pan.
We have learned, over the years, to let her be when she gets to Pan.
Sigh.

All this, because of a few kind words uttered in her direction.

All this, because some random man has proffered some seemingly-well intentioned, seemingly-genuine, random compliments.

All this, because she knows nothing about anything to do with any of it at all.
Pathetic.

What is she doing... giggling at her mirror?!