Bryn Donovan - A New Blog I'm Reading

I am reading a blogger/writer, Bryn Donovan - "tell your stories, love your life."  I hope you will check her out, maybe even especially if you need some motivation to get busy and write.

Her latest blog was about how she confronted someone who was being offensive with a racist comment.  To confront is the courageous thing, the right thing, to do in order to be true to one's own values. To not confront that kind of rudeness, especially when the comment is so blatantly racist or misogynistic is cowardly, but for sure I've walked away from horrible comments from people who were being a jerk. Keeping the peace, I tell myself.

But then I realized, I can be a jerk, too.  And this is what I told Bryn:

Thank you for your candid reveal.  Your piece spoke to me, for sure, because I try really hard to be aware of when I'm caring too much what other people think and working hard to make sure they think the best of me.  One of my incidents happened when I hosted a book club/luncheon meeting at my house.  We had only met once before, so none of these ladies were friends yet, which probably made it worse - a friend would have told me to not try so hard.  But I did try - I made everything from scratch and worried that it would be great, and when I put it out for the five or six of them to come fill their plates, I said, "It's all homemade, you can be sure of that!"   No one commented on my stupid statement, and I realized in the silence that in fact we had met, as I said, at one other person's home and she had served quiches - two of them, and I'm sure they were supermarket quiches, and honestly very good.  I was being a jerk.  Who cares whether you make everything "homemade?"  How did that make the other hostess of book club feel?  When I think about it, I still feel ashamed of myself.  No matter how many times I have defended someone (President Obama comes to mind - the jokes that I heard about him made me seethe, and all I could say is that I didn't appreciate them, thank you) or  defended a race or an ethnicity or sexual orientation, I lost a point on this one. Sometimes being a jerk is just an off-hand comment you wish you hadn't said in your rush to impress or be accepted and liked.  It could mean we haven't let go of basing too much of our self-confidence upon what we imagine others think of us. I hope your locker room person really is  "working on herself," and I commend you for your part in her growth.

If anyone is reading this and you were either the jerk or in the company of the jerk who was being offensive, why don't you tell me how you handled the situation and how you feel about how you handled it.  It may not be an everyday event, but it happens, and usually we feel unprepared to know what to say.  Or, if you were the perpetrator, did you catch yourself?  Did you grow from what you did?  

Death of a friend Part 2

Scroll down and Read Part I first or this won't make sense.
So, let me “finish” my girlfriend story.

When Kevin died, Caroline and I weren’t speaking, hadn’t in fact for about three years.  We had gotten into something by email and when she went into a rage she could be so destructive and abusive, I let her go.  Kevin wanted to get us back together and after all that time and hardly even remembering what we had argued about, we were in tentative talks to maybe do that.  Then he died.  I didn’t know it, of course, and we were in Gainesville that summer that we rented a little house near the campus for six weeks.  I don’t answer calls from unidentified numbers and I had gotten one from an unknown number, and then I got a call from someone asking me to call Caroline, which I wasn’t too keen to do without talking to Kevin first.  Somehow I ended up hearing from her neighbor I think that he had been killed, and I was so stunned and bereft that I wailed and cried and felt sorry for myself and then realized that she must be lost completely.  She was estranged from her oldest son (for all those reasons that we weren’t speaking), and Kevin wasn’t just her beloved son, he was her lifeline.  He lived about a half hour away and visited her weekly, picked up her medication for her, smoked a little pot with her, and talked with her in a way few people would believe.  They were so honest with each other! 

So, I went to the funeral.  She actually sent me the ticket and paid for my hotel room and bought me a tire when I blew mine out on the highway.  She could be so generous and loving and effusively lavish with praise as well.  No one in the world could tell you how wonderful and special you were better than she, and no one could cut you off at the knees and find your most vulnerable spot and exploit it like she could. I would believe her assessment:  I was wonderful and talented and brilliant and funny, and  I also took to heart when she told me I was narcissistic and insensitive, that she hated me and never wanted me in her life and to drop dead.  It was horrendous, her wrath.  Eventually, not only forgiving me (for what, I’m not sure, never was sure but decided to let it go for Kevin’s sake) she involved me in her life – she had no one else, remember?  I was a co-signer on her bank account and it was substantial because of Kevin’s life insurance monies, she consulted me on everything and finally came to south Florida and stayed in a nearby motel for two weeks before deciding to move to south Florida in spite of the fact that she had a son in Atlanta who had encouraged her to move near him, which made a lot more sense to me.  I didn’t want to be responsible for her and most of all, I didn’t want what I would get if she decided she was angry with me again, which of course happened in fairly short order.  And I was just so done.  She had told me to drop dead one time too many and I told her if she ended up in the hospital she could call me, but nothing short of absolute emergency.  And she angrily agreed and assured me she had “friends.”  People I could see would take advantage of her.  For all her brilliance, (genius I.Q.) she was so naïve about people.  If they told her they liked her, well they must, right? God.  

So time passed; I wrote my novels she had so strongly encouraged me to write and I even thought about taking them to her and leaving them on her door stoop but never did.  Then she called one day; I saw on my cell phone that it was her number and I just couldn’t bring myself to answer it and she left no message.  I got home and she had called the house, too and left no message.  A few months later Chris called me to tell me she had moved back to South Carolina – Greenville, where Kevin had lived – and that she had committed suicide.  Something about smothering.  I imagine a plastic bag but I can’t figure out what she did with her hands to keep them from trying to save herself.  She had always threatened suicide and even made a few attempts (at least that what she told me).  Finally, she had succeeded.  Her landlord found her and called Chris and he called me.  I will always regret my spinelessness at not picking up the damn phone.  Maybe she was saying she was leaving to go back to where she had been close to Kevin, maybe she was telling me she forgave me, maybe she was going to tell me to come get whatever I wanted of hers, maybe she was calling to tell me to go to hell, but I could have survived that,  couldn’t I?  Now I’ll never know what she was calling about.  Her silence is deafening.  In my whole life I have had wonderful friends, stable, some not so stable, sweet, concerned, encouraging friends.  But I never had a friend like her.  She just didn’t let me get away with anything.  Not a single, tiny  rationalization.  No chance to deceive myself with self-talk as long as she was around.  No lame excuses. We wrote long, long letters to each other as well as even using a tape recorder to “talk” letters that she had in a box that all went wherever her stuff, an entire apartment full of it, went because she “hired” some neighbors to bring it to her and of course they didn’t.  Just didn’t – everything she owned except what she must have been able to get into her car.  I don’t even know what happened to her cat, Missy.  She must have sat in that apartment in South Carolina feeling so lost and betrayed and alone.  She needed very strong medication for a severe back injury – narcotic strong – and apparently she couldn’t get it because she needed to get a new doctor, etc. etc.  Bureaucracy. 

 I ducked out.  I was a coward.  Just because I didn’t want her to hurt me again – as only she could do.  When someone you believe loves you and they turn on you and say horrible, hurtful things – things designed to hit in all your soft places, it’s hard to turn the other cheek and consider the source – she really was ill; I know that.  Probably Borderline Personality Disorder.  I had a few of them as clients when I was in practice and they were impossible.  They either loved you – you were the best – or they couldn’t believe you were supposed to be their therapist, you were so vile.  That was her to a tee.  So, I know.  I know.  But still.  Come on, what would it have cost me to answer the fucking phone?  Apparently whatever it was, I wasn’t willing to pay it.  Several people have encouraged me to let myself off the hook – you took enough, you had no reason to believe it wouldn’t have been more of the same, blah blah blah.  They are all well-meaning, I know.  They love me, after all.  But she would tell me the truth – I was a coward.  And she would be right.  I regret most the things I didn’t do over the things I actually did.  And that goes to the top of the list.  I ignored her call, and I don’t get another chance.  She died horribly, my friend.  I don’t believe in God or in heaven.  She did – she was sure she would see Kevin again.  I hope she was right.

Political angst

My high school graduating class has a dedicated person who will forward along to all of the over 200 graduates anything class members choose to share - except when one of us is soliciting funds for a charity or trying to sell something.  I think that's appropriate.  And most of us know not to get "political" even though some of the snarky comments are borderline.  

Anyway, someone posts a story from 1985, mind you, about a hometown ball field, (one he grew up playing on, and he's 75 years old now!) Seems it was in such bad shape, county commissioners were proposing it be closed. Thirty years ago! And my former classmate goes on a mini-rant about when the government gets involved in "anything dealing with kids they really mess it up."  I just wanted to scream.  Who the hell does he think builds, maintains, and staffs parks (for kids)? The government!  City, County, State, National government. When was the last time big business built a park for kids?  Are we living in alternate universes?  And besides, that park has been absorbed by a nearby school athletic association.  Not exactly unavailable to kids.  Arghhhh.

My dad was a disinterested worker bee for the U.S. Government for thirty years, and he retired to be continuously taken care of by the government for the rest of his life.  Multiple surgeries, hospital stays, etc. etc.  Not one thin dime out of his pocket.  

I walk into a doctor's office and get essentially free care; my husband's last surgery probably was over a hundred thousand dollars - not a penny from us.  Who do all the government haters think is taking care of them/going to take care of them forever?  Not capitalism, not free market economics, not major corporations. The government. 

Medicare was supposed to run out of money by 2016 - wait that's now, right? And the Affordable Care Act along with lower healthcare costs (lowest since 1960) allowed the trust fund to stabilize until 2030.  Hmmm.  But isn't that "Obama Care?" Give me strength.  

Who makes sure the air we breathe, the food we eat, the roads we drive on, and the water we drink are safe? Who employs law enforcement?  Does anyone really believe that private enterprise would do that?  I know there is waste, I know there is corruption, I know the system is fraught with problems and bloat, etc. but I would hate to try to exist watching  the lowest bidder provide all those services.

But that's just me.

Good stress. Bad Stress. All still stressful.

Stress level charts rate life events that cause stress and say that if one has several of these at one time, it exacerbates the stress considerably.  No one died, but I’ve had so many life changes lately that I have whiplash from trying to adjust to them all:
1. We moved from a one bedroom apartment in a senior citizen complex in south Florida within five minutes of every commercial establishment one could name, including good restaurants and conveniences galore to north-central Florida into a modest home on five acres of land in a small town with one restaurant and several antique stores.
2. We adopted a dog – very sweet but with some anxiety issues from former owners’ less than compassionate care.  A dog.  Nervous and insecure.  Haven’t had a dog for probably 15 years.
3. I’m getting fat.  At “home” I walked in a nearby park most mornings for twenty minutes or I swam in the heated condo pool, so I got exercise at least four days a week.  Now I stomp around on the five acres hoping to avoid a limb to trip on looking for snakes.  No cardio is involved.  
4. I quit my job (12 years at this one, but it was at the same place I had a 20 year career – that’s over 30 years in one location). I had money coming in from that job – “pin money” I spent without thinking about it.  I’m still doing that, but I don’t have the money coming in any longer.  I worry about that but don’t change my behavior.
5. I live 24-7 with my husband now.  I cook for him – and myself – and I eat too much. (See number 3).
6. I left the social contacts and friends from both the job and from being born and raised there.
7. I became a grandmother - a hands-on grandmother, babysitting two days a week.
8. I went from being four hours away from my grown kids to having them within minutes away.

The stress scale admits that some of the stressors in one’s life can be good things, happy things, and certainly some of mine are – actually most of them are, but they still create stress.  Change is difficult.

My life goal remains the same: Be kind, be engaged, and make a difference.

Or: No complaining, no criticizing, and no condemning.

We did it!

Deciding whether to move to Gainesville was easier when our daughter decided to have a baby; that was a true deal breaker.  Then our son, who is now in Dubai as the director of a new royal project, "Deep Dive Dubai," decided to sweeten the deal by purchasing a piece of rental property that he wanted us to live in - a red ranch house on five acres of land in High Springs, about six to seven minutes from our daughter and her husband and the new baby.  He was born on July 31, and as he grows and changes daily, I cannot imagine not being here.  When we go "home" for a week to catch up on people there (Ed's mother is 102 and in a nursing home there), I am amazed that he has changed so much when we come back.  And now, what is "home?" Is it here or is it there?  South Florida, I suppose, will always feel like home to me, but this place in the woods is so homey and comfortable and lovely.  There is quiet, and solitude and birds and trees and an owl family and cows next door and it is beginning to get cool and there is a front porch with a swing to die for.  I love it here and I love being near the baby and his mommy.  My daughter and I are getting closer; I think it helps that her consciousness has been raised by becoming a mother.  One can never know love like the love of a mother for her child until one has a child, so now she knows how I felt about her brother and her.  If I could earn some money, if I could be inspired to write regularly, if I had just a couple of peers here to hang out with and be "Pat" instead of "Mom," all would be perfect.  Maybe in time.

And I will get to "the rest of the story" with my friend's death, I promise.  I think about her every day.

Death of a friend Part I

January 20, 2015
Chapter One of Caroline's Story

A friend of mine took her life last week. Our lives had intertwined when my now 46 year old boy child was not quite three years old. It was 1971, and my husband and I had sold our home and purchased a mobile home in a lovely mobile home park because we had plans to travel to Europe and live there for a while (three to six months) and wanted a place we could close up and leave easily. Jamaica Bay had all the amenities, including a communal pool. My little one had been swimming before he could talk, so we went to the pool - a lot. One day as we entered the pool, there was another tow-head nearby but outside the pool area playing in the sand box who looked to be perhaps a year younger than my boy. We said hello, and he looked up and gave us the sweetest grin. He was completely dressed, including socks and shoes, something not terribly common in south Florida. We went in and saw a woman doing graceful laps up and down the pool.  I settled onto a deck chair and my little one went into the water. The woman noticed him and how young he was (everyone did) and they struck up a conversation, as much as a child his age was able to.  I heard him tell her his name - Jarrod. She seemed enchanted by his skill in the water and asked him lots of questions. I tuned them out, and eventually she got out of the water and plopped herself down next to me and sprinkled water on the magazine I was reading. When I looked up (not without annoyance) she asked, "What does one do for intellectual stimulation around here?" With more than a little coolness, I haughtily replied, "I go to school." Undeterred by my disdain, in fact probably amused by it, she laughed, easily and musically. In fact, her voice when speaking was quite melodic - a ringing soprano voice in a largish woman with long, black hair and clear turquoise eyes. 

Over the years from that auspicious beginning grew a deep and complex love/hate relationship that at times defined me, at times infuriated me, and certainly at times kept me honest - with myself. 

She was from New York - an Italian by heritage, married to a man who was working to finish up a job in New York in preparation for a position as a project manager for a large construction project nearby. He was gone for weeks at a time, then "home" with his family for some brief time, but nearly ready to move down permanently. She had another boy besides Kevin, the sandbox dweller, who was in in Kindergarten half days, whose name was Chris. I learned that the fully-dressed imp with the sweet smile, Kevin, was terrified of the water, thus he would not come with his mother to the pool unless she agreed to dress him completely. His logic was that he would never be expected to enter the water without a bathing suit. He was still in diapers under all that clothing and stubbornly clung to the idea that they too protected him from having to swim. Over time, as he and my son became childhood friends, he gradually became something of a swimmer in order to play with Jarrod, but he never learned to love it. He did learn to love me, though, and thought of me as a second mother, a role I was proud to claim. That sweet toddler grew into a very, very bright young man with a secure self concept, an ability to laugh at himself, and a skill with writing software that led him into a fine paying position and the respect of his peers. He took good care of his mother - his real mother - until he was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 40. From that moment, her decline began.

To be continued...

Coming Soon!                                                                                                     

Pat has written a book!

Briefly, here’s what it’s about:

A young woman, after graduating from a nearby university with her master's in English Lit, moves back home to her little South Carolina mill town, gets engaged to her high school sweetheart and goes to work in the local museum. And then she gets dumped by her fiancée. And then her father dies of a heart attack. It’s a lot, right?

The book opens at her father’s funeral, and the reader gets the hint that in addition to these two awful-enough experiences, she has endured as-yet-revealed family tragedy as a child. Consequently, she wants to move away to avoid being the town’s “poor thing” any longer.

She moves to Asheville to start over. It gets lighter then; she finds a cool place to live, and she makes friends - a woman with a cop stalker and a gay barista. Both of them are co-workers she meets when she gets a job in a café-bookstore. She has romance, she runs into some danger, and she contracts with a true crime writer who wants her to read his first effort at crime fiction. He emails her some pages and she begins to get the eerie feeling that he knows what happened to her family when she was a child. There are diverse characters in the work, including a motorcycle riding, Cherokee roommate and a cat named Stuart.

Ø  Does anyone want more? Tell me what you would like to see included in my book.

Ø  One of my readers has a favorite scene:

She was invited by the kind man to say her last goodbyes, but she declined saying she wanted to remember her father striding out to his truck with an ever-present toothpick in his the side of his mouth. She surprised herself with the sentiment, and as soon as she said it, she knew it was true. Only then would she permit herself to cry real tears, which gave the funeral director permission to do what he did best – comfort her.

I will keep you informed, and I definitely appreciate support and feedback: patjab40@gmail.com