Wednesday, May 8, 2024

 Wednesday, May 8, 2024

   I went to Atlas today to drop off the recyclables I can get money for, glass soda and coffee bottles.  Yvette brought up the glass bottles, and I had several garbage bags full of soda cans. I had $16 worth of stuff.  I donated it to some homeless person.  I collected  tin cans and other glass containers. I don’t know what I was thinking of. Atlas didn’t take either of them, even for general recycling. I brought the glass ware to the transfer station recycling center and the tin cans to the garbage drop off.  There wasn’t a line for either one.  I was in and out in no time.

    I stopped at Target to look for balloons and a birthday cake. They had neither.  I had to ask someone where I could find those items. Safeway.    As I entered the store, I ran into a woman I knew from when I tutored at the local elementary school and from church. I had a bad experience with her at the school. I approached a young teacher and volunteered to tutor her kids. She brought in this woman to talk to me.  The woman offered me a job as a tutor.  I didn’t want to be tied down time-wise, so Mike and I could travel to the mainland when we liked. She also wanted me to use their teaching method.   I refused the job. She said I could volunteer and be free, but I had to use the school’s method of teaching reading.  I said, “Why would I do for free what I’m not willing to do for pay.”  I need to follow my own instincts.  I am very good at discerning the student’s real need and addressing it. Insisting I use someone else’s protocol would be torture. No thanks.

   Besides what this woman did to me, she did something even worse to the teacher who finally allowed me to work with her students. Adriene had two profoundly disturbed children in her class. This woman came to observe and told her she needed to reorganize her class. She shouldn’t isolate those two boys.  Adriene thought one would grow up to be a serial killer. There’s a good chance she’s right. That boy was removed from Adriene’s class and  given a male aide who monitored him every minute. The teacher who took him in made it clear she would tolerate no disruption to her class.  The boy had to be kept under control.  The second boy was also assigned an aide who could only focus on him and nothing else.   I was furious about the trip she laid on Adriene, suggesting she had problems because of some inadequacy on her part.  

   Here, I found that arrogant woman in Safeway picking flowers for herself for Mother’s Day.   She was with her husband.  She looked somewhat discombobulated. She introduced me to her husband. I believe she said he was a doctor.  It reveled in her insecurity.  I’m not usually that vengeful. But boy, I don’t like rigid people.

   Safeway had a wide selection of balloons in various sizes.  My original plan was to buy a helium balloon on a string and tie it around Gayle’s waste while we did our evening walk. The tie on one was ten dollars.  I bought a medium-sized one on a stick. 

   I headed over to the bakery next.  An employee was stacking fresh baked goods on the tables.  I asked her about a small birthday cake. She showed me the selection. 16 dollars.  No. Also, more than the four of us, Gayle, Lutz, Darby, and I, would eat.  I told her I just wanted a good sized slice of cake. She showed me where that display was.  I chose a large piece of chocolate cake. The employee wound up being the baker. She said she would write Happy Birthday Gail on the cake.  (I only found out afterward how she spelled her name.) While she was inscribing the cake, I looked at candles.  The slice was way too small for 80 candles.  I picked out an  8 and a 0.  It would do the job just fine.

   Darby came to pick me up for our evening walk. We hooked up with Lutz and Gayle when we encountered them coming up Kukuna. I had forgotten to grab the balloon on a stick when I left the house. When we passed the house, I ran in to get it. I stuck it down the back of her shirt. It didn’t sit right. She told me to stick it in her bra. Perfect. I took pictures of her with the crown on the balloon showing over the top of her head. 

   We three girls went to my house immediately. Lutz ran home to get the food he’d prepared. Fixings on a flatbread and salad.  We were a wonderful group. Gayle commented on how the foursome had gelled. We all got along with each other. While I have a good relationship with each person individually, something magical happens when the four of us are together. Lutz commented we were all independent and there are no narcissists.  I commented no one had to dominate. The way the plans for the party evolved was heaven for me.  We co-created the event, giving suggestions and rejecting others.  During dinner, I sat quietly so I could enjoy the way I felt in their company. It was a balm for my loneliness.  The evening erased the pain I had been suffering all day.

   Loneliness is an agony. I recognize this pain as something I started experiencing before my sister was born. I remember hoping her birth would be a fix to what was missing.  I had visions of working with my mother and caring for the baby. My parents made it clear the first day I was to have nothing to do with my sister. Her arrival didn’t make things worse, but it did clarify there was no solution. Pictures of me a year later show this sad face. My mother had everyone in their corner doing as little as possible. She needed total control. She couldn’t handle any spontaneity except her own.  

  She also couldn’t handle connection and affection. I heard a podcast on immature parents.  This is a wonderful description of my mother. My sister and I both saw her that way.  She was around 8 months old when I was born and a year and a half when she was born.  My mom kept a good house, cared for us, and loved us passionately. She just couldn’t attune to up and couldn’t tolerate shows of affection.  That latter was particularly frustrating since she was a radiantly joyful woman capable of love, just not for another human being. As far as I can make out, she actually thought something was wrong with showing another person love, not just for herself but for them as well. She ‘protected ‘ us from her intense love for us. It was a sacrifice. Who knows, maybe she was right, given she was off balance to start out with.