Follow up on the Reincarnation

I know that I sometimes give people great power over me, and how they "make" me feel. But people don't always intend to make you feel a certain way. Their just living their lives and doing things that make themselves feel better. I mean, everyone has their own opinions, their own perspectives, their own insecurities. It's the world just going 'round.

So rather than continue to be angry, and boy was I angry, I picked up the phone and called my PTA counterpart. I told her I was a bit confused when she handed me this box and told me to handle it because she couldn't. She said, "Well, I was just hoping that this stuff would just handle itself." And I said, "Well, it's not and if you're not going to do it, then I'm stuck doing it all." In the end, she reluctantly agreed to take her box back and handle the fund raiser. I explained how I'm not leaving her alone to handle it, I just want her to run with it for once. I'll gladly handle the next one.

I feel so much better that we had this communication. I'm sure she's not happy about it, and I don't "make" her feel great either... But sometimes you gotta just not let people shit all over you.

Lisa Reincarnated

Growing up, I had two different sets of friends: my school friends, and my block friends. Obviously, my school friends were fellow classmates, and my block friends were different ages, but we all hung out together on our block. When I was about 8 or 9, I had a friend named Lisa, who lived across the street from me. She was 3 years older, blonde, pretty and I looked up to her. She even taught me how to ride a bike.

But Lisa was my sadistic friend. She was the ring leader when the kids on the block decided to pick on me. I told her I had a crush on a boy in class, and she told everyone about it and they would tease me endlessly. I would always ignore the fact that she started and participated in making my life a living hell. I just wanted to be her friend, and would do anything to spend time with her.

I can remember one time when I had this great collection of Barbies with the house and all the furniture. The dining room was my prized possession with all of its tiny plates, cups and silverware. I had brought all my stuff over to our Mei's house and the three of us played together. And just as I should have suspected, Mei & Lisa conspired against me, pretended to wrestle, and purposefully broke my table and chairs as they threw themselves on top of them. I was pissed and hurt. And I felt like such a sucker for even thinking that they wouldn't treat me this way.

Anyway, these memories come back today because the woman that I share PTA responsibilities with (of all things) reminds me of Lisa. Not necessarily her personality traits (although some do compare) but how she makes me feel. She makes me feel 9 years old again, and I'm giving her permission to step all over me. There are only two of us on this PTA Committee and I have done everything. Sure, she'll show up for fundraisers and help out with distributing packages, but I handle all the logistics, the money, and managing every project.

At the end of last year, I told her I was burnt out and that I wanted her to run with the next fund raiser, a candy drive. I gave her a contact name and told her to run with it. Today, she hands me a giant box of stuff and says, "Oh, this is yours. Everyone knows how horrible I am at this, so you're going to have to do it." Who the hell is everyone and if she's horrible at this stuff, why the hell is she on the PTA?????? I just said OK with this puzzled look on my face, took the box and got into my car.

That was at 9:30am, and I'm still furious. The problem is, I am such a wuss and for me to muster up the courage to someone whom I feel just bullied me, is going to take everything I have. Not sure how I'm going to address this yet but I really have to if I'm going to keep that little 9-year-old girl in the past.

Christmas Gifts

My friend Lyndon "nudged" me to post about Christmas gifts. Three things I got for Christmas:

1. Nike Plus sneakers with the iPod adapter for my Nano to track distance/time/progress of my runs. My husband got this for me, on request (he always needs for me to tell him what to get, which I find pretty annoying). Anyway, it's a very cool gift and I need to use it more. I had only done treadmill running in the past (just started last summer), and this encouraged me to actually run outside. I did that for the first time about 10 days ago when it hit almost 70 degrees here in NYC. I ran just 2 miles but it was pretty invigorating. These sneakers are the coolest!
   
   
2. Clinique 3-step skin care system. My family does a Kris Kringle for the holidays, and this was the gift I requested. Another good one since I was low on my supply and with my sensitive skin, this stuff works great.
   
   
3. Palm Treo phone and organizer. This phone is pretty cool. My husband got me this one (upon request) too. This phone really helps with keeping me organized, especially if you've got ADD like me! My schedule is a bit all over the place and our wall calendar just wasn't cutting it. I've had a Palm Pilot for years but had stopped carrying it because I hate carrying too many gadgets. Although this phone is kind of big, has everything I need in one place.

Three things I got but didn't want:

1. A new bedding set from my mother-in-law. Seriously now, would anyone actually put this on their bed (in burgundy)? I haven't decided if I'm going to return it and buy something else, or just throw it in the Goodwill bin.
   
   
2. A tea set from Bombay Company from my stepmother. Pretty, but not my style. I returned it and got this instead. I bought the display item for $40. Perhaps I should have sent this to the tea addict, Lyndon!
   
   
3. One of those digital picture frames from my father's sister (I guess she's my aunt but I only see her about once in every 5 years.) Anyway, this was a very generous gift my XD card doesn't fit and I now have to buy an adapter thing to transfer pics to it. Not sure where it was purchased, so I'm unable to return it.
   

I feel like a spoiled brat complaining about the gifts I didn't like. I wouldn't have said anything otherwise, but I was NUDGED! :)

Lessons learned

I have been trying to think of a response to this one for days....

Iris had commented on a previous post that I should find the lesson learned in finding Rose's letter. I still don't know what the lesson is yet but I've done a lot of thinking about why these people are constant recurring characters in my dreams. They are people who were once in my life but are no longer... my therapist says they tap into my "abandonment issues."

The reality about all my past friendships is that I feel they either drifted apart or were broken because of me. I blame myself. And here is where I can go into some rather deep self-loathing about how everything is my fault. hmmm... but maybe this is the lesson. I don't know. Maybe I need to stop blaming myself for every friendship that has passed. Maybe I need to tell myself to stop feeling like a burden to my family and friends, or really try to determine why I put myself in rather compromising positions.... can someone say sabotage??

I wish I knew how to get my former friends out of my dreams but they do really haunt me. And with every dream I'm left with a strange sense of loss. Perhaps it's just a reminder about what I'm missing even in my current relationships. The mind is a complicated place and I'm not even sure if I'm making sense. But it's 1:40am and I can't sleep.

My mind spins and races and runs uncontrollably
My world turns upside down
But my clock still ticks loudly
So here I am trying to make sense of the insanity, while I google to figure out how soon I can take a pregnancy test

I am Wonder Woman....

Which superhero are you?

(Thanks, Lyndon!)

Your results:
You are Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman 70% Robin 65% Green Lantern 65% Supergirl 65% The Flash 60% Spider-Man 55% Catwoman 55% Superman 55% Iron Man 45% Batman 35% Hulk 25%

You are a beautiful princess with great strength of character.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Rose's Letter

I had a good friend in high school named Rose. Recently, when I was cleaning out my closets, I came across a letter from her. When I was in high school, girls used to write letters to their friends all the time... tell their dark secrets, get their emotions out on paper. We all did it, and looking back now, I can see how therapeutic it probably was. I wonder if that's all left to email now, which to me, would be a little disappointing. I like the idea of writing free-hand on paper. You see the emotion in the handwriting, you see where she pressed hard on the pen, scribbled, and in some places wrote small so no one could see, and larger for an exclamatory effect. It's so much more personal, more real. And you can rediscover it 20 years later, like I did.

Anyway, Rose had a quiet, shy, sweet exterior. She came from a very traditional Italian family, and was very protected and her parents would never let her out of the house. However, Rose always had a long-term steady boyfriend, from the time we were in the 8th grade. And the rumors of her sex life were always circling. Her boyfriends were always a little unusual -- one was the bad boy who was cute but never showered and everyone always wondered what she saw (or smelled) in him. The Italian-"boss" type who was 20 years old, whom she would sneak out to hotel rooms with. And the highly effeminate guy whom others in our school would make fun of for being gay (even us, his close circle of friends, always wondered).

Anyway, Rose loved to flirt and play mind games. In this letter, she confesses to me that she just told her boyfriend (Dirty Guy)'s good friend that she had a crush on him. Then she proceeded to go back to Dirty Guy to tell him what she did. Her letter was filled with distraught and guilt and she kept saying that she was a horribly mean person and she didn't know why she did the things she did.

A couple of nights ago, soon after reading that letter, I had a dream that I was reunited with her and we hugged. And the hug was so strong, so intense, that I started to cry on her shoulder... long and hard. It felt good to see her again, and I remember feeling that I so wanted to be friends again.

After thinking a lot about that dream, I remembered how our friendship ended (I had actually forgot this when I rediscovered her letter). She betrayed me a couple of years after H.S. graduation. I was having problems with my boyfriend, and was trying to break away to see other people. I had gone on a date, and used to tell her everything. Well, my guy had suspected something, and convinced Rose to record our conversation of my silly details. That evening, he presented me with this tape. I went back to Rose, furious. How could she betray my trust? She tried to apologize but I wouldn't hear of it. Our friendship ended.

And today, I still have regrets about how I handled that situation. I mean, I wasn't totally honest with my boyfriend, was I? I was betraying him, so karma came back and bit me in the ass. And she was the easily-persuaded type. My boyfriend was the suave-charming-schemer type and I always did understand how she could've also been the victim in that set-up, too. And I ended up patching things up with my boyfriend, and he convinced me that I was a sucker if I ever spoke to her again. I think I may have been a sucker for getting back with him.

Many years later, I ran into her in the subway about 4 years ago when I was pregnant with Ladybug. She was with a man that didn't look familiar, and told me she was engaged to be married that year. I was so excited to see her but she looked far less interested. In my exaggerated memory of the last time I saw her, I see her leaving the train with her fiance, laughing and giggling, running away from me.

Parallel Dream

I had a dream last night of an old friend. She was a girl in High School whom I befriended and we simply just lost touch. In this dream, I guess we were at a reunion or something and she wouldn't talk to me. She was upset at me, she just simply didn't like me anymore. She was talking to everyone in the group but me and when she walked away I asked her friend why. Because you were rude to her, you ignored her. She doesn't want to talk to you.

I guess I have that effect on people. I have, unfortunately, hurt someone in this blog universe from a comment I posted. Sometimes I need to just keep my big mouth shut and my eyes open a little wider.

Me

I feel inclined to post a picture of myself. I am especially considering making this my identity photo in this blog, rather than using my picture of when I was four.

One of the main reasons is because I feel I need to shed my primary identity as a child. I am not a child. I may have scars today that were received as a child, but that is not who I am. I am a grown woman, an adult and I need to remind myself of that. I'm not that little girl who was abandoned by her parents. I am a woman who is responsible, compassionate and lovable. I am a woman who can be strong, smart and independent. I am Me and proud of it.

My Ladybug took this picture of me. I crouched down to get to her level for a good shot. This is how she sees me. Her parent, the adult, the woman in charge in the household. I can be fun, authoritative and my kisses make any boo-boo feel better. I am her rock, her confidant, her superhero. I am her mother and I love that role most of all.

I'll leave that little girl as my photo for one more day. But I'm going to try to shed this identity once and for all.

Dirty Laundry

I typically let my dirty laundry sit in the hamper for a long time before I wash it. When I'm low on underwear or clean shirts, I wash clothes. Then the simple thought of folding all of those damn clothes makes me procrastinate, and causes those clean fluffy clothes to get wrinkled and barely presentable. By the time I'm ready to fold them, I have to do an overhaul, take great care, time and effort and put them all away. After this enormous effort and angst, I feel accomplished and I wonder why I didn't do it sooner. And then the cycle continues again at some point.

My dirty laundry is very telling of how I handle my life. I don't want to take care of things when it looks easy. I end up handling things at the last minute or when things get really bad and I'm forced to. By the time I'm ready to clean it all up, it's near disaster. But when I finally do it, it feels damn good and I wonder what took me so long.

I was honored by a comment from my favorite blogger today, Philip. He has inspired me to let it all hang out.

Today, I'm angry for allowing myself to be in a relationship where my spouse just doesn't even like me. And I don't know if he will ever see me for who I truly believe I am. He doesn't see the good in me, only the bad. And he never lets me forget the things he hates about me. I used to believe his tales of lies more than I do now, but it's still hard. I am sad more than I am happy in this relationship.

I'm angry at the fact that my abandonment issues run so deep that it's hard for me to end this relationship. This time, his scornful words came after I said, "Why don't we go to breakfast together?" I was told I was selfish and ungrateful. I was told that I would have been better off with my old boyfriend if he wasn't dead. After we both threatened to break this shambles of a marriage off, I was forced to give him all my credit cards from my wallet because "I can't be trusted." By the next day, we were somehow trying to pull it together, and when he came home from work, he gave me a hug. No words, just a hug. And I almost cried because all I really want is his love. As I write this, it feels so ugly that I can't believe this is my life.

As soon as I'm done here, I am submitting this post before I chicken out. I could just leave it in draft for my own catharsis, but maybe if I see it in print, it'll give me a good shake. Maybe more about my deep rooted anger for another time.

Happy New Year

I read these blogs that sound so hopeful for the New Year. Now is a time to reflect on the previous, and look forward to the new. Bah. Humbug.

My wounds run so deep. My anger is buried in passive aggressiveness and my heart aches. Tonight, I simply just want to just pretend my life is something different, like I always do. I want to pretend it's just some random day in July, that we're not "ringing" in anything. I guess I haven't written here because of the pressure to write something hopeful, something promising, something nice. But therealme is not that today. I don't have it in me. I can't even pretend today. I just can't live in denial at the moment. I just want to take my little Ladybug somewhere far away and be happy.

I'm angry at so many for so much for so long. I'm especially hurt because of my current life and the fact that he just has no problem to continue to hurt me and bring me down. If I had a better support system, maybe I could shed this negativity. Rather, he has a magical way of making me feel two inches tall. Where is the truth in my life? What is reality? I try to so hard to make it feel right, feel good. And I just can't get it right when there's someone constantly disrupting my state of... lying to myself.

Some people in my family surround themselves in organization, neatness and cleanliness to hide their true feelings. I, instead, manage to make a 4 ft. pile in every corner of every room and every closet and walk out of here the happiest-go-luckiest-gal on the block. Right. I wonder if I'm really kidding anyone with my cheerful exterior.

I wish I could say Happy New Year. I wish I had the strength to make some major changes in my life. Maybe. Someday. Not sure if it will be in 2007.