Tool For Tuesday: Don’t Dance the Either/Or Tango

Either I love him or I hate him…either I am angry at him or I adore him…

We don’t have to do that either/or tango. We can love someone and still be angry at them–even though it’s tough.

When Wilbur the pig first met Charlotte in Charlotte’s Web, he thought, “What a gamble friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal, scheming, bloodthirsty—everything I don’t like.”

But Wilbur said that underneath Charlotte’s cruel exterior, she had a kind heart, and she was to prove loyal and true to the very end. I love that book. It teaches me that we don’t have to do that either/or thing. We can love and accept people not only despite how complicated they are but because of how complicated we all are.

So what are three qualities you might not like about the person you love? She’s temperamental, sharp-tongued and fiery, let’s say. So put those qualities on the table. Then be like Wilbur and love all of them. They are sloppy and stubborn and I still love ’em. They drive me crazy and I still love ’em. Love ’em at their worst just like we want them to love us.

Tool For Tuesday: It don’t gotta be either/or. It can be and…and…and…I still love ’em.

About dianabletter

Diana Bletter is the author of several books, including The Invisible Thread: A Portrait of Jewish American Women (with photographs by Lori Grinker), shortlisted for a National Jewish Book Award. Her novel, A Remarkable Kindness, (HarperCollins) was published in 2015. She is the First Prize Winner of Moment Magazine's 2019 Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, tabletmag, Glamour, The Forward, The North American Review, Times of Israel, and is a reporter for Israel21C, and many other publications. She is author of Big Up Yourself: It's About Time You Like Being You and The Mom Who Took off On Her Motorcycle, a memoir of her 10,000-mile motorcycle trip to Alaska and back to New York. She lives in a small beach village in Western Galilee, Israel, with her husband and family. She is a member of the local hevra kadisha, the burial circle, and a Muslim-Jewish-Christian-Druze women's group in the nearby town of Akko. And, she likes snowboarding and climbing trees.

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