Those first few weeks, I walked around this house and I swear everything I saw just reminded me of her.
It was very hard to work, to do be here alone with “Ben”, to do anything really, because I couldn’t really
snap out of it. It was like I was stuck in first gear or something. I wished I could work somewhere else. I
would be in our garage and I would just stand there, tools in hand, for the longest time and not work. I
would just look at the garage and everything there and think “this was our house, the home we bought
together, the life we built, this was our dream” and I couldn’t really see it as anything else. These were
bad days. I barely worked at all. I barely functioned as a Dad. I wanted to, but I couldn’t even figure out
how, other than to leave and I couldn’t do that. Where would I go?
Obviously, this time was very difficult on Paul, who could not “figure out how”, in the
face of all-consuming negative emotions, to transform object meaning to access other, more
desired, role identities. This is not to imply, however, that emotional states are inescapable or
that meanings determined through emotional alignment cannot be altered. Although meanings
that are affectively determined can be demandingly present (as Paul can testify), respondents do
have the ability to change their mood and, by extension, the meanings attributed to the objects
around them. Listen to Jenna, as she explains further:
There are days when I wake up and for whatever reason I just don’t feel in the mood to work. I
don’t have a lot of pressure on me, it’s not like I have a set structure for my day or any of that. So here I
sit, in the kitchen with my canvas and all I can think about is boy, that stove is filthy. I know I’ve got to
do something to snap out of it or it’s not going to be a productive day. I drink a cup of coffee, I walk the
dog, I perk up. When I come back to the kitchen, I don’t so much see the dirty stove anymore. It’s
changed. I see my work space and I see possibilities and I get to work.
Respondents who are able to control their mood, as Jenna does, are better able to
control their role identification processes. The upshot of these tendencies is that the affective
facets of role identification can give rise to object interpretations that affirm the desired
identity. Like Jenna, most respondents seem to have an implicit understanding of the link
17
Convention