- Chloe O'Sullivan
On Tour With the Kid | The Queen of Emotional Maturity
I swear, this year, I really tried. I'm busy with work, and I have so much on my plate in my personal life. I told myself I didn't have the brain space to invest this year. Sometimes, even with the best intentions, you aren't the best version of yourself, and I must admit this was the case when I found myself racing home on a Wednesday night so as not to miss the MAFS dinner party.
For those of you who resisted the urge this year, turn to the next page now because this story isn't for you; it's for those of us who, despite our best efforts, found ourselves eyerolling ourselves into another universe, watching what amounts to a slow-moving car crash. That said, I’m invested like people previously were in The Days of Our Lives. I love the storyline, but I understand they are just characters.
Invested enough that while a certain person is talking with his shirt unbuttoned practically to his navel, I will send the crying-with-laughter emoji and a photo of a glazed Christmas ham to a friend I know is also watching. I am not, however, invested to the point where I’m sure that everything I see on the screen is a true reflection of this person as a whole. I don’t feel compelled to jump onto their social media feed and write them hate mail. It's a reality show, and if you fall into the latter description, for goodness sake, calm down.
Maybe you have always been in the perfect relationship, and if you have, congratulations. For those of us who have been single for any length of time, it's rough out there. It's so easy for us to scream at the TV and think, OMG, what is this one doing with this one? They are so toxic.
However, just like in real life, you need to understand that the person in the relationship is not seeing the whole picture. They are not hearing the awful things their partner says to the boys at the gym. They are not seeing the disturbing behaviour that the rest of their world sees, and similar to the people trying to produce the most watched TV show in Australia, the offending partner is engaging in emotional manipulation to keep the other person involved.
So, for those of you screaming at the TV, just remember that for all your time on the moral high ground, you are being emotionally manipulated as well. That's the job of any TV producer. People have not been watching Grey's Anatomy for 20 seasons without storylines designed to engage their emotions. If you cried at the end of Beaches, if just the thought of the end of the Green Mile makes you burst into tears, if the last episode of MASH, after all these years, still leaves a lump in your throat, then your emotions have been manipulated by a good storyteller. Thus ends the chapter titled Give Tori a Break.
Then, every now and then, on these kinds of programs, there is a shining light. Can we take a moment to talk about Queen Lucinda Light? There are some people that you meet who feel like fully evolved humans. She feels like she has lived all her lives, learnt all her lessons and is just here to be the absolute best version of herself. As much as people say the experts often get it wrong, watching her with Timothy, that’s not true in this case. Anyone watching can see that Lucinda is precisely what he needs.
Some people are not put on your path to be the love of your life; they are there to help you learn a lesson. To help you be softer and more open. People are hard on Timothy but he came onto the show six weeks after the death of his only surviving family member. That’s a lot, and you can understand the need for connection, but he is doing well early in the grieving process to put one foot in front of the other, let alone shine as the best version of himself and show up for someone else’s emotional needs. Lucinda walks this beautiful line of understanding that, at the moment, that is all he has to give. She recognises the tragedy for him and manages her disappointment with such grace. If we could all be a little bit like Lucinda, the world would be a better place. Hail to the queen of emotional maturity.
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