Fiery Darts

This has certainly been my week for "fiery darts."

First the ugly friend blowup (now resolved, thank God, *sigh*, all better now).

Then yesterday I had a certifiable psycho-woman call me to complain about how one of my employees treated her on Saturday (my employee didn't mistreat her; the woman literally came running into the store screaming that someone needed to call the police because a car was being broken into, yet there was not a soul in the parking lot at the time; it all went downhill from there because she is nuts, as you will see), and after ranting and raving at me on the phone, I calmly said, "Ma'am..." and she screamed, "I can't talk to you with you screaming in my ear like this!" I said (even more calmly and much quieter), "Ma'am, I'm not screaming at you." She said, "YES YOU ARE! YOU HAVE SCREAMED AT ME FOR THE LAST TIME!!!" and I said, "Ma'am, I don't think I've raised my voice at all." She screamed, "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK, IT MATTERS WHAT I THINK BECAUSE I'M THE CUSTOMER!" Wow. It was awesome. She even threatened to call the owner to complain about my "screaming"... after which I had to repeat the Waco store number to her 7 times because she kept interrupting me to yell that she couldn't understand me and that I was breaking up and why was I giving her so many numbers? I finally had to repeat the phone number like this:

"Ma'am, please write down the numbers as I tell you and don't interrupt me. Ready? OK.

"2."

"5."

"4."

"7."

"7."

"2."

"9."

"2."

"2."

"5."

I paused for about 3 whole seconds between each number just to make sure she got it. She must have, because she hung up when I said, "5." She proceeded to call the main store and ask for the owner, who wasn't there, so she was passed of to his "assistant." His "assistant" called me 10 minutes later to say, "Wow, what a psycho." Anyway, yeah, that was fun. Can we do it again?

And then yesterday David and I had another situation upon which I won't elaborate because it's so ridiculous, but it was yet another case of someone not being mature (or loving, or grace-centered) enough to come to us with the problem, but instead choosing to attack us in an underhanded way.

I've been dealing with conflict all week (!) but I should probably get used to it... it goes with the job. Being in leadership makes me the prime target for any and all attacks, valid or baseless (most are actually baseless, I'm finding), and I'm learning how to hang in there with it and not let it defeat or demoralize me. I have always been weak in that area; I grew up with a lot of criticism, where nothing I did was ever good enough, and I tend to avoid conflict and tend to be more of a people-pleaser because of that. I think the biggest issue I have in dealing with conflict and criticism is not being given enough credit, not being given the benefit of the doubt. So many issues in friendship, in the church, in life, could be avoided altogether if people would just learn to approach each other in love instead of jumping to conclusions. I know this sounds so obvious and easy, but apparently it's a lost art. Three times in the past week I've been attacked by people who have refused to give me the benefit of the doubt, refused to come to me and give me a little credit, refused to take the time to consider things from another perspective. It's just really getting on my nerves, and I'm just venting here because I'm among friends. And I am learning what James meant when he said, "count it all joy...knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." I am grateful for the lesson and for the thicker skin I'm developing... and in the meantime, I'm trying very hard to to get ghetto on people!

The Art of Losing (or The Anatomy of a Breakup)

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

-- Elizabeth Bishop

I think I have mastered the art of losing friends. It seems to be a theme in my life. Sometimes it is by wrongdoing on my part, sometimes it is just time to part ways, then there are those (rare) instances where the breakup hits out of nowhere, sudden and violent, blindsiding me and leaving me trembling in shock and sheer lack of comprehension. Such is the carnage I have experienced this week.

I have a friendship of nearly five years that has been, well, unique. It has been the most demanding friendship I've ever experienced, due to issues upon which I won't elaborate, but the bottom line is that over the past five years I have poured much of myself into my friend -- we're talking blood, sweat, tears, prayer, fasting, sleepless nights, countless hours of counseling her, listening, etc. Used to be that we were inseparable, but our time has been scarce since I've been working full time. As far as I knew, however, everything was fine and dandy.

Last week, however, what started out as (what I thought) a simple misunderstanding turned into a battle of catastrophic proportions. And I'm still scratching my head, incredulous, thinking, "What the heck...?" I literally had no idea there was a problem. I'm still not sure what happened. All I know is that on Sunday, everything was great, and by Tuesday I was the most hated individual on the planet.

After regaining my senses after the initial shock, I realized that my friend had just shown me, in one 3-minute phone call, her true feelings about me and about our friendship. Knowing that I have been stressed to the max, she created a situation for me that not only has now added to my stress, but she has also decided to go out of her way to hurt me deeply in the process. I have always suspected, and others have told me for years, that this friendship was rather one-sided and that I was doing most of the work. It was unhealthy, but my fear of losing the friendship trumped my desire for sanity, so I kept spinning my wheels trying to make it work. On Tuesday, I realized that I had been given the truth in neon lights that I couldn't ignore, and so I made the decision to walk away, cut my losses, learn from it, and move on.

And so now I am left pulling out the shrapnel and readjusting my focus. I've done this before, so it's not quite as horrific as it was the first time, but it is so very much like breaking up with a significant other. I live in a small town. We have the same friends. It's only a matter of time before I run into her at Walmart or HEB. It's only a matter of time before our mutual friends start asking me for my side of the story (and for once, I don't feel the need to give it. I don't need to be justified. I know in my heart and before God that I have done absolutely nothing wrong, which is why this situation is so absurd). It's only a matter of time before casual acquaintances ask me how she's doing. These things are always awkward. They are never easy. I have had that fluttery knot in my stomach and sweaty palms for a week now because I hate conflict and because it's just weird. I find gifts that she's given me over the years and want to smash them to pieces because they seem to mock me now. I find myself muttering "should-have-said-phrases" like George Costanza: "Oh yeah? Well, the jerk store called..." I keep finding myself forgetting that she is gone from my life, and I'll think, "Oh, I need to tell her about that thing I saw today...." and then I realize that I can't. And when do I take her off of my speed dial? When do I erase the text messages? It happened so suddenly -- one minute we were friends and the next we were enemies -- but those old friendship habits and patterns don't immediately die when the friendship does.

I'm okay with it, though, really. Maybe I'm still in shock and I'll shed some tears once reality hits. I don't mean to sound callous. I just think that it was time to move on, time to get healthy, and God allowed this to happen to get me off my butt and get on with it. I feel free and really have peace about it. I wish things could have ended a little more gracefully, but how do you end a friendship gracefully? ("You know, everything seems great between us, and I've had a blast being your friend for five years, but I'm really feeling like it's time to stop being friends now. Thanks for all you've done. I really appreciate it.") Maybe we'll talk at some point and there will be some closure, but I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to having more time to spend on my husband, my other friends, and my writing. Life is good.

A Picture Share!

We decorated christmas cookies, and I am so *over* Christmas! What? Aliens can celebrate christmas too...

Need For Speed

Well, my house is still standing.

Last night was Punky's birthday party, and we had his school friends and their parents over to our (very small) house for cake and queso and pizza pockets. There were 13 kids all crammed into Punky's room, and the room was literally pulsating with the kinetic mayhem that resulted from sugar, adrenaline, and the delirousness that happens naturally after a week of being cooped up in school. Dana and Elisabeth were jumping up and down. Quintyn and Turner were running and sliding into the walls in their socks, taking full advantage of the hardwood floors. Christian, Dylan, and Brandon played with cars in the corner. Colette and a few others systematically popped every single balloon with tacks. It was great. After much cake and 4 dozen pizza pockets, they all went outside and rode their bikes while the parents gathered around our fire pit and attempted to police the bike carnage. Then the girls left, and the boys were invited to spend the night, 5 boys in all including Punky, because Turner decided to go home after Quintyn hit him on the head with a golf ball.

The slumber party was a milestone. It was Punky's first slumber party, and for several of these boys, the first time they've ever spent the night with someone other than Grandma. I thoroughly enjoyed being a fly on the wall. Their little conversations were priceless:

Punky: Brandon! You broke the hydraulics off of my car! Why'd you do that?
Brandon: I'm sorry... it was a accident. I didn't mean to.

They were silent for a bit while they continued crashing cars, and then:

Brandon: Punky, am I still your best friend in the world, even if I broke your car?
Punky: Of course... how could you even ask that? You're my best friend ever.

Brandon is in the second grade, and Punky is the oldest in the 3rd grade, so there is almost a 2-year age difference between them. Brandon is very small, and is very much like Piglet: meek, cute, fearful. But Punky has always been very kind to younger kids, and is not much of a rough-and-tumble boy like some of the others in his class, so I am sure this is why the two of them get on so well. We laid out pallets for them in the living room and turned off the lights and put "Robotz" in the DVD player, and Brandon snuggled up to Punky like a baby brother and went to sleep. Precious.

I think they went to sleep around 12:30, after lots of giggling and fart noises and butt jokes and other random boy stuff, and then, as if someone flipped a switch, they were all instantly awake and jumping again at 6:30 am. No coffee necessary with these boys. I got up to make my coffee when I heard them, and the moment they saw me, one of them asked, "Can we go outside and ride our bikes?" It was 6:30 am and cold outside and they hadn't been awake 5 minutes. I told them to wait until after pancakes, and at that, I think collectively they ate 6 bites and were dressed and out the door, where they played on their bikes and in the dust with cars, until their parents came at noon.

I am so happy to see Punky outside with friends. We isolated him so much last year, and while he did okay with the homeschool/new church/no friends thing, I always felt lonely for him. He is a very social person, more so than me or David...no, rather, he hasn't yet been scarred for life by the cruelty of his peers, thus causing him to retreat into the hermitlike existence we have come to seek. There is such innocence in his relating to others. It's all out there, take it or leave it, with nothing to hide and no innate need to do so. I am learning from him to come back out of my shell and to be human and to not run from human contact. Typically, I do not want to be friends; Punky craves new friends and will talk to (and accept) anyone he happens to meet. I avoid eye contact unless absolutely necessary. He will walk all the way across Walmart to say hi to a random church member he spots while I am ducking behind the canned goods hoping no one will see me. I'm such a psycho. It's not that I think myself better than anyone, or that I don't like people... I've just gotten so used to hiding, protecting, cocooning, that it's habit.

So these birthday parties are good for me, because it forces me to open my home and my heart to people I really don't know very well, and to spend time with them simply because our kids are friends, and to learn that other people aren't really so scary after all, and that making small talk isn't really that bad. It's good to watch my son with his friends, because it reminds me of my kid self before things went bad, and how playing, dreaming, exploring, and observing in the presence of friends is a really beautiful thing.

A Picture Share!

A four-year-old after my own heart.

A Picture Share!

Writing is life.

Phrases I Am Sick Of

"In the wake of"
"Don't hate, appreciate"
"storm-ravaged areas"
"oil for food"
"bird flu"
"Forewarn Stormteam Chief Meteorologist Jennifer Broom"
"extra value meal"
"basal cell carcinoma"
"no more late fees"
"I need to return this"
"I need to speak to your manager"
"Inspiral Carpets"
"your truth is whatever you want it to be"
"cedar season"
"there is no safe cigarette"
"I'm down on my knees, I'm begging you please"
"the desperately needy country of Mauritania"
"ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies"
"git'r done"