over the line
tap dancing on boundaries
Boundaries have never been my thing.
Most ‘normal’ people live here Jimmy a friend said once gesturing to a coaster on a bar room table, then there’s ‘the line’ right here, then there’s you. He took another coaster that was on the other side of the imaginary line that he drew and tossed it across the room.
You’re too much dude. Tone it down.
I’m not exactly sure what I had done on that occasion. Maybe it was an insult. Perhap it was an impulsive scream. Or just maybe I suggested that we rip someone’s head off and shit down the hole.
It was a joke.
But like a lot of my jokes, I was the only one laughing.
More strange still?
I’ve always loved lines and boundaries.
As a child, riding in the back seat, I wanted my space. I’d draw an imaginary line between me and my sister.
She delighted in tormenting me by making presistant miniscule transgressions. She knew that by crossing the line just a little bit, she could provoke me to rage.
That of course resulted in a parent’s patented hand swing.
You know the one from back in the early eighties?
When your parents would be driving and you and your sibling would be fighting.
Don’t you make me stop this car you two!
But they’d never stop the car.
Sure, there would be some wild flailing attempts to smack us but we kids were too smart for them. We’d ball ourselves up in a corner and laugh. It was thrilling the whole line game back in the day.
The boundary building didn’t stop there.
When my wife first slept over, I drew an invisible line down the middle of the bed. This is my side, that’s yours. Let’st keep it that way.
No, this wasn’t an attempt at chastity. I just couldn’t sleep with someone touching me.
And somehow this cuddly, wonderful woman ended up with me - forever longing for a snuggle that never came.
These days, she’s well happy when I’m away in Thunder Bay and she can starfish without my snoring. Perhaps the line game was a precedent that though problematic at the beginning of our relationship, it’s aged well.
But socially?
If there’s a line of propriety, I can’t help but cross it.
Which leads me to the arm rests in airplanes.
That’s an entire world of social norms, voodoo and moderately contained violence.
I had one such incident just the other day.
But that’s a story for another time.
I’d say more, but I just made a boundary with you dear reader and I’m sticking to it.