lessons.

i realized the other day that i don't know how to floss. it was never a part of my dental regiment. i heard about it; i was told to do it at school. beyond that - it meant nothing. i bought floss on monday, came home, and just looked at it for a second.

what do i do with this?

i thought back to the one place i could really remember seeing anyone doing it - television.

i know how ridiculous this all sounds - i can't floss and i tried to figure it out by remembering tv examples.

it's seems like such a simple act. but i could potentially mess this up. i mean, i've watched someone cut a cake with this thin string.

it made me wonder how we go about learning to do what we do. it takes me back to my psych classes and the nature vs. nurture debate.

i watch my little nephew and, for the most part, he is a good kid. but i see why he acts up; why he gets confused and frustrated; why he is demanding; why he has tantrums. he's being getting mixed signals. one minute he gets a hi-five for making a joke; the next he's being yelled out of the room for talking too much.

then that just gets me thinking about relationships and how we deal with each other. why can it be so easy for some to ultimately abuse a partner in one way - but then simply ball up and roll over for another? on the other hand, you have the individual who constantly treats one person after another in the same way in an almost formulaic way. where do we learn how to interact with each other? i understand that how we act can change but inherently, i think there's a base somewhere in us that gives us the jumping board for what we do.

i know - for sure - that no matter how often i try to come off as tough or strong or independent, i'm driven by this need to please. i'm back in grade school again, trying to get straight a's, blowing everyone off the chart for book reports, waiting to hear the sounds of approval from my parents. no matter how angry i can get, i still feel guilty about not meeting expectations and by my own sense of failure, because somehow, at some point, i was not good enough. and this all bleeds into my relationships and all that i do.

where did this come from? i could just blame it all on my parents - they're part of it, but that's obviously not the whole story and i don't think i could figure it out on my own.

as individuals, as people, as blank slates before the world - we learn from our surroundings and from those around us. i wonder sometimes if i learned the right things. am i really justified in my ways - of thinking, doing, acting? who's to say that i actually know what to do? that any of us honestly know what we're doing?

i don't know - but all i can do is just pull out that piece of floss and hope my gums don't bleed.