Words and Meaning

I came across a passage in Meredith Maran's book My Lie that struck me as very true to my own experience:

...I realized that I had been doing this all my life: interpreting my father -- ascribing meaning to what he'd said and hadn't said, what he'd done and hadn't done.  Until this moment it had never occurred to me that the words and deeds he chose were up to him, but the meanings I chose to extract from his words and deeds -- they were up to me.

Although Ms. Maran's habit of ascribing meaning based on her own inner life had much more dramatic consequences in her life than it has had on mine, I can see how devastating it can be and how unfair it is to the people around us. It will save me a lot of pain and grief if I can be mindful of when I'm doing this.