“Mary Rutthins.” What? No. I’m sure I said “Poppins.”

In case you can’t tell by the title, you and I are in the midst of another Adventure in Senseless Blogging! Truth be told, the topic of this post absolutely could make for serious bloggin’. But, honestly, I’m not in the state to do much serious blogging.

I’ll be upfront with you on another point too. The title of this post addresses what I wish I was really writing about but feel conflicted about whether or not I should. Basically, I’m being cryptic and taking advantage of you. But at least I’m being honest about it, right?

If you disagree, now would be the time to bail. . . .

So my family was in town last week. Two of those days, Mom and I watched my niece so my sister could go to a conference. While Caelyn and Claire napped, Mom and I sat in the living room. I got out the laptop. She got out a blanket.

“You takin’ a nap, too?”

Mom looked at me with the same face she makes when the waiter at Abuelo’s asks if we want “dessert nachos,” and she wants some but doesn’t want to be the one to say it: “Maybe, unless someone wants to talk to me.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know. What are you reading about?” she hinted, with raised eyebrows.

I wasn’t reading anything, but I said I was thinking about some personality stuff online that I’d checked out recently: “You wanna take a test?”

“Sure!”

And that’s how we ended up spending the next two afternoons personality testing. I started her off with the Enneagram. Mom was uncomfortable with the open-endedness of the questions. She wanted me to further define about 70% of them. In the end, she came out as a One. (If I’m not mistaken, that’s what I predicted.)

Personally, I think that assessment is pretty accurate. (I’m trusting you to have the skills to Google “Enneagram One” and any other terms I might toss in.) But Mom wasn’t so convinced:

“Are you sure this is THE VERY BEST personality test?”

I told her that I really like it, but to understand the Enneagram and get the most out of it, you have to do more than just take a test. You’ve got to really consider it, because the Enneagram isn’t just about personality traits. It’s about motivation.

She looked at me dubiously, “What about that test Jennifer made Kevin take? Can you give me that one?”

I assumed she meant the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which I informed her could be taken for free in short form, but not in full-form. And, just like that, we were out of the Enneagram and into Jung.

It’s not surprising that she’s an (extreme on every trait) ESTJ. When Dad got back from the mall, she talked him into taking the test too. He turned up ISTJ. My sister’s an ESTJ.

And, me? I’m a (fairly extreme on every trait) INFP. (No wonder I’m a Four.)

Mom was far more comfortable with her Myers-Briggs results than her Enneagram results. (My hunch is that has something to do with the stamp of approval provided by my psychologist sister.) I didn’t take any tests in front of her, but, as you know, I’ve taken a bunch of Enneagram tests. And I’ve taken the full-length MBTI for something or another. So when she asked what I am, I had no trouble coming up with the answers.

She wasn’t so down with the description of the Four, “You aren’t melancholic and mysterious!”

(She’s forgotten about the time in high school when she was so concerned about my lack of self-disclosure with her and my dad, the amount of time I spent in my room, my locked cabinet of poetry, and the fact that she saw me laughing with my friends but not laughing at home that she had Dad sit me down and ask, in all seriousness, if I was using drugs. Of course, as a Four — and an INFP, for that matter — that got quite the rise out of me. Dad was doing most of the talking until I said whatever emotional, biting, sarcastic response I conjured and Mom burst in with, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were involved in The Occult!” But she’s never thought of me as melancholic. And she certainly never removed the top of that poetry cabinet when I left for college and took the key, after having, unbeknownst to anyone, emptied the thing.)

But the INFP description got all kinds of affirmation. She was especially fond of the points about INFPs seeing the good in even the most unlovable of people, their tendency to procrastinate, the extreme sacrifices they make for their causes, their laid-back nature until their values are infringed upon, their ability to cut with words, and their skills with language.

And she let out a huge “You know that’s right!” to this statement:

“They might go for long periods of time without noticing a stain on the carpet, but carefully and meticulously brush a speck of dust off of their project booklet.”

I can’t deny that’s true. But I also place high value on the happiness of my family and aesthetic atmospheric qualities, which, I think have led me to keep my home in decent condition and do tasks like laundry and dishes that I might otherwise consider too menial and boring. (But if I’m stressed, you bet I let them slide and indulge myself in some luxury.)

At any rate, I think both the description of the Four and the INFP are accurate, but the more I read about the Four, the more I’m blown away by just how deeply it exposes the true me. (I won’t go into why right now, but just know that I’m not using “exposes” lightly.)

And I think Mom and I illustrated our differences in how we view people, their potential, and the future when discussing (over lunch that day) a couple who’s been separated for some time and are moving toward divorce and custody battles. She noted how much it grieves her to know that the man had waited 39 years to marry, just to be sure he was choosing the right woman.

“He thought he was getting the jackpot, and instead, he got the total opposite. It makes me so angry,” she lamented.

I waited a moment and said, “Maybe, but it’s not over yet.”

Mom immediately shook her head, “I know! He’s still got to sign the papers. Then it will be.”

I didn’t say anything, but what I meant was that it wasn’t over because there’s still time for the jackpot to grow out of the pain and the mess, no matter what papers have been signed or what actions have been done.

Anyway, going through those tests and descriptions with Mom was fun and interesting, but not too surprising. I think, over the years, all of my family members have come to understand each other a little better. At least on my part, I realized at some point that tailoring the way I communicate with my parents so that it’s specific to them and takes into consideration their thoughts, feelings, temperaments, and beliefs isn’t the same as being unauthentic or conforming. That’s gone a long way.

But I do think I’ve got a lot left to learn about the people I care about, so I think reading more about their (and my) traits and motivations is a good thing. And, as my sister pointed out, maybe if we’d done stuff like that when I was younger Mom and I wouldn’t have had some of the intense arguments we had, and my dad might not have said, “I understand Jennifer. I can predict what’s she going to do. I know what she’s thinking. But I have no idea what’s going on in Katy’s head or what she’s going to do next.”

Or at least it might’ve made them feel better about that fact that I was so “unpredictable” and about that independent rebellious streak that they couldn’t help but worry would cause me to self-destruct. At least they would’ve known I have high ideals; that’s gotta count for something.

With that in mind, I tried looking up info about parenting and the Enneagram and/or the MBTI, and found some info, but not as much as I’d expected. I at least thought they’d have trend stats or somethin’. When I broke it down to just INFPs or Fours in relationships, I got all kinds of sites from the other numbers and types expressing their dismay from being in relationships with us “emotionally toxic” Fours and INFPs. I even came across an article entitled “Marrying an INFP or How to Ruin Your Life.”

Yikes!

Other surprises included:

1. Chris’ revelation that he can’t remember willfully disobeying his parents in his teenage years. (No, he still didn’t take a test. But I think my reading parts of the Four description and him admitting that it’s spot-on might just win him over.) If I hadn’t been willfully disobedient at some point, I’d be wearing koolats right now and listening to Dennis Jernigan. By the way, Chris’ revelation came in response to my asking if he would’ve gone out to have big fun with The Wretched like Vanessa Huxtable. He wouldn’t have. I just might have in high school. I absolutely would have in college, but I would’ve said I was doing it, even though I knew they disapproved.

2. Dad’s revelation that he has NEVER been late to work in his life. Ever.

3. Mom’s response when asked to rate this statement on a scale of Very Inaccurate to Very Accurate:

“I favor the surreal.”

Even as I read the question, she scrunched her face in confusion. “What do you mean, ’surreal’?”

I tried my best to explain, just like I did with the three other people I’ve mentioned this to who all asked the same question. “Do you ever feel kind of outside or above reality, like there’s more to it all — maybe more to yourself — than what you can see, and there are moments when you can connect to it, maybe even reconnect to it, and it just feels surreal?”

She looked at me like I was crazy, so I tried again. “Do you ever feel like transcendence is an option or that you actually have transcended?”

“No!”

Honestly, I think if you favor the surreal, you just know what that statment’s talking about. But, yesterday, I picked up Helen Palmer’s The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life at the library, which, in the chapter about Fours, describes the “surreal” better than I did:

“Because objective life does not produce satisfaction, there is often the sense of two realities: the objective world and the one behind the scenes. Objective reality does not hold the promise of fulfillment, yet there are indications to Fours that other realities of experience occasionally coexist with the objective world. There is the sense of a plane of existence that is beyond ordinary reality, that can be particularly sensed at the intense concordances of emotional life; at those junctures where tragedy forces an upwelling of unconscious feeling, or in affairs of the heart, where love is lost or gained. Fours report that at such moments a connection can be sensed to that which is missing; that they experience a felt connection to an eternal source of support” (198).

I’m not going to draw the Christian version of “a felt connection to an eternal source of support,” but I’ll just throw out the fact that I think there is one and I think there are moments of transcendent connection between humans, too, that can be beyond words.

But Mom not favoring or getting the surreal isn’t the part that was so surprising (and I’m talking just about earth-shattering surprising).

Unfortunately, that’s the part I’m not sure I should tell you about. It’s what got me writing this post and it’s what keeps me from finishing it.

That’s probably not fair, but, well, welcome to my blog. Don’t you have some Googling to do?