Voices inside my head

I’m plagued with the same affliction that struck Fred Savage in the 80’s TV series The Wonder Years. No matter what we saw in his life, his personal narrator told us the unspoken nitty gritty truth about what was really happening.

Just like Fred’s character Kevin Arnold, whenever I have a conversation with someone, the narrator for my life says little, sometimes biting, comments in my head. For example, I’ll be driving behind a car that lingered a tad too long at a once-red, now green light. Unbeknownst to the driver, my head is talking to me, yelling, “Get going, idiot. It’s not gonna get any greener unless you water it.” Or one of my kids will be exaggerating a bit, like “I’ll pay you back first thing,” and my alter ego will be shouting, “Yeah, that’s gonna happen” while my voice politely responds, “I’m sure you will.” Or my husband will repeat back to me what he thought I said, and I’ll be asking silently, “What planet are you from?” This all happens, of course, quietly behind the smile plastered on my face.

I learned it from my mom. Not that she had the little voices — she didn’t have a mean bone in her body and never said unkind things about anyone. She didn’t need a narrator. “Watch what you say,” she’d chided. “If you complain or bring bad news, people will tire of you and you won’t have any friends.”

“Crud,” I’d murmured, face pinched. Not only was Mom usually right, she practiced what she preached. Once, a friend visited showing off a new granddaughter. I remember looking at this really unattractive infant wondering how Mom would manage to keep up her “goody two shoes” image here. I’m young and just about to blurt out, “Wow, that’s one ugly baby,” when Mom coos, “What a lovely green dress she’s wearing.” She never lied. She never said hurtful words. She always looked for something good to say.

Mom’s sisters were not as diplomatic.  One of my aunts told me about a woman so homely she could have scared dried mud off a shovel, or something like that.  My mother-in-law could have used a narrator at least a couple of times. I’d gone to visit her one day after getting my hair cut and styled. I walked in. She looked at me and said, “You paid for that?”

I remembered using Angela Lansbury to challenge Mom’s friend-magnet philosophy. “In Murder She Wrote,” I quipped, “Jessica Fletcher had lots of friends.” The silence on the other end meant Mom was mulling it over. “Talk about a bad news bearer,” I’d said out loud. “Everywhere she goes, someone dies. Explain that one.” I was pretty cocky. I thought I had her.

“Aha,” she exclaimed. “Notice she never gets invited back.”

So while I’m not inherently nice like Mom, I have learned to keep the narrator around. I like her. She comes up with some of my best lines.

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