Let's call the whole thing off, eh?

So my friend M challenged her blogging friends to write on this topic of "Let's call the whole thing off" as part of a bigger subject-related, flex-your-writing muscles challenge. And I thought, why the heck not? The particulars don't have to reflect tomato/tomahto intimacy and relationship conflict, but it could...

So my long-time accomplice of 8 years is a Tomato, and I am a Tomahto. We were raised in very different families, and despite what we share, these differences in our world outlooks that stem from how we were reared, by who, and where often cause Mr. Tomato and me to scratch our heads and study each other like two different species of monkeys from opposite hemispheres might. I wish to understand my Tomato, but my Tomahto-ness often gets in the way, causing my Tomato so much stress. This is reciprocal, but I don't want to beat up my Tomato right now, so let me tell you how my Tomato struggles to communicate with me.

Tomato often struggles with my Tomahto responses to his Tomato comments. Ill-timed, abrupt, off-topic... whew! Sometimes, we wonder if I suffer from Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). Maybe, but I also grew up in a house of constant debating and questioning each other. I found it fun then, but my accomplice doesn't think it is fun. He wants to be listened to, not questioned when he's talking about his tomatoes. My Tomahtoes don't belong in the conversation, at least not RIGHT THEN. Another thing that makes me question an ODD diagnosis: I was so shy as a young girl and I had a really hard time asserting my wants, opinions, and feelings to my bossy best friend at home, my bossy best friend at school, and a few noteable bossy school bullies. When I hit puberty, being compliant to these girls went out the window over night and I became a LOUD DEFIANT PRETEEN, who could be a bossy brat, a bully, or just fought with my parents and brother about every little thing. I spent a lot of time being grounded until puberty phased out and I stopped being a bully and so bossy. But I still get pretty defiant when I'm feeling attacked or just feeling feisty. TOMAHTO.

My long-time accomplice also struggles with my loud yells of TOMAHTO that occur often when he's telling a story which I too witnessed (orwhich I have heard 200 times before). I exhibit this form of Tomahto-ness by interrupting his story often to ensure that every little detail is thoroughly explained, or I'll ask leading questions that I SO know the answer to, like, "and wasn't there a really obnoxious dog next door that barked through the whole meal?" My partner HATES it when I ask leading Tomahto questions and he feels that most of my must-include details make the story confusing to the listener. But I think they're all so interesting that I can't bear the idea of leaving any of them out. Now this is known as the funnel effect in the Adult ADHD world. Instead of getting to the point, and then elaborating on all the details--like a thesis statement in the first paragraph of an essay, subsequently backed by evidence in each following paragraph until you hit the big conclusion, which is more or less what you said in the first paragraph but with more conviction!--an ADHD adult likes to lay out all the evidence like puzzle pieces and then funnel them all down and out for you in this dramatic, and time-consuming, and maybe puzzling fashion. Ummm, this is also kind of how a novelist writes, so being both a novelist and an ADHD Adult, I love to put out all the ingredients and then pop them into the funnel for the yummy funnel cake result. But some people, my accomplice included, shake their heads and say...Ummmm, what are you talking about again??? And I say, "Like, TOMAHTOES, silly-heads!"

It is hard for a tomato to become a tomahto, and vice versa. Sometimes, I feel like yelling something like, "Let's call the whole thing off!" and I know my accomplice feels that way sometimes too. Sometimes we feel like yelling this a lot and I think the only thing that prevents us from doing that is that, despite being a tomahto, I love this one tomato and I want to understand what makes the tomato a tomato, and what makes me such a tomahto. And that tomato, he loves this here tomahto, and he's committed to working with me to make tomato-tomahto soup, and we really want it to turn out AWESOME. And sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't.

This is for sure: this particular tomahto and that particular tomato don't give up easily and don't like to quit. Sometimes the challenges of our differences are really enriching, enlightening, beautiful, even if other times, the challenges are really exhausting, painful, and make me want curse and kick things--which isn't pretty, so I try really hard not to do that. When does a tomato and a tomahto really know that the challenges are past enlightenment and growth and beauty, and are just painful, overspent, and no longer offer forward progression? How does a tomato and a tomahto, who love each other in spite of themselves, know when to say, "Let's call the whole thing off," by a mutual decision?

Maybe the tomato and tomahto need to discuss what that would look like. Now that's a scary conversation, regardless of whether you like pajamas or pahjahmahs.