Saturday, June 13, 2015

Idealize

idealize
verb, transitive. To regard or represent as perfect or better than in reality.

"What prompted you to move in with them in the first place, Mom?" Mark asked. "The experience was so unpleasant, you've been talking about how bad it was ever since."

"When we met, I thought, 'This couple will be my friends for the rest of my life.' They put on such a good public front that I idealized them. They kept it up for a long time--long enough to convince me that I could trust them in every way. It was only after I moved into their house, with you a toddler, that their true colors emerged." Marge shook her head. "What good actors they are! I have to grant them that."

"Why did you stay after it became so unpleasant?"

"I felt trapped. They were very extravagant, for such indigent people. I was making more money than she was, and he wasn't working at all. It was a relief to take you out of day-care and have him watch you at home, with their daughter. It saved me a lot. Unfortunately, soon everything I made went to support that household: rent, groceries, gas for the cars, utilities.... There was no end to it. I felt obligated to help financially, since they were helping me to take care of you, and because I could. I would have felt mean-spirited to keep any money back for myself while the household needed so much."

Marge paused and stared into space for a minute or two. "The change in the way they treated me took place gradually," she said. "By the time I knew what they were really like, it was too late."

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.

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