DAY 21: OH, THOSE FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I am skipping the letter for Day 20. It is for the one that broke your heart the most. I have already written about that. It is a tough call. It could be my first love. That was quite painful and I wrote a blog about that. You can read about that here if you want to know me better. Or it could be Mr. Electric. That, also, was extremely painful. In some ways, it was worse than my first love because it had no closure. I wrote a blog about that one, too, and you can read about it here. I finally found my own closure and wrote it in my Letters to the Ex-Boyfriends/Husbands. You can read about that here. Whew. You may not care about any of that. If so, just skip on ahead to today's letter. It is a letter to someone you judged on their first impression. Personally, I think this is a bit silly. We tend to judge, to a degree, everyone on their first impression. As time goes by, that impression solidifies or changes. Ah well. I know that Flash has already gotten a letter in this exercise, but he is a classic example of how judging on the first impression can go so terribly wrong. So, here goes...



Dear Flash,

Whenever I think that I would like to be in a relationship, I think about you, and I immediately change my mind. We tend to draw to us people who are in the same emotional place that we live. Right now, I am still sick. I live with chronic pain. I try to stay positive and live in that place, but I know that I don't stick there. I know that the reason you seemed so attractive to me when we met was because you understood me so well. Our situations appeared to be so similar. You had been divorced longer than I had, the circumstances surrounding your divorce were different, but you had chronic back pain, so you understood chronic pain. We shared divorce and chronic pain. You also had just moved in with your mother to try and help her get through her divorce. Your dad left her for a much younger woman and she was shattered. You seemed to be the ideal son and all-around good guy.

One of your best qualities was your willingness to nurture others. You were excellent as a caregiver. As someone who had been doing all of the giving, and not getting anything back, it was wonderful to be on the receiving end of some TLC. It blinded me to some your more obvious faults. For instance, you had no trouble traveling me with one week of every month back to GA so that I could do my job. You had no money to contribute to this endeavor, and you got cranky if we didn't eat out enough, as opposed to buying food, and eating in the hotel room. The crankiness got worse, the longer we were together. After a while, I began to question why you didn't get your own job. I was much sicker than you and I was still working when my doctor had told me that I shouldn't. What was your excuse?

I finally quit that job because it was too much for me. One week in Georgia led to two weeks of severe migraines back in Florida. Then it was one week of less severe migraines and then back to work. Clearly working wasn't working for me. It was also around this time that your real self started bleeding through your disguise. The care giving was over. Cranky ruled the day. Then there was the stealing of my medicine. That went over real well. Then there was the missing cough medicine at my parents' house that you never would cop to taking. Then there was the cheating and lying about it. Then there was the verbal battering to get me to give you another chance with the kicker being that if I didn't you will never become a good person. That is below the belt.

What is amazing is that I bought that for a while. I allowed you to sell me on the fact that I was responsible for making you a better person. I remember sitting you down and making you confess to all of it. Every rotten thing you'd done. There was a lot of rotten to confess to and it made me ill when I got the list. My response to all of this was that once you start out making bad choices, they get easier to make. I think of it as a moral line. Once you cross it the first time, the second time is easier, the third time is easier yet, and the fourth time you don't even think about it. And that was where you were living. I told you that your moral compass was gone. You had chucked it out the window a long time ago, and you were going to have to redraw your line. I could not do this work for you. You had to look at your own list and decide if these things were okay or not. If they were not, then that was stuff that was now on the other side of the line.

My problem was that you were still lying to me about cheating on me. I just can't abide a liar. I knew in my heart that you would have left me for her had she not lost her job at that last possible moment. You still weren't working and were looking for someone closer to your kids, and who could support you in a lifestyle you would like to become accustomed. It was just bad luck that her company had to let some people go and she was one of them. Good luck for her, bad luck for you. Really bad luck for me. The fact that you never would admit to any of this only dug you in deeper as a liar in my book. Eventually I realized that I had, once again, come full circle. I was only with you because you had emotionally blackmailed me into being with you. I no longer respected you and really didn't like you very much. There was no love in my heart for you. How can you love someone who steals from you, lies to you, cheats on you, and then pins you into a corner when you make it clear you want out? You can't.

So, the next time I left I had some help. You made that necessary. We talked to the pastor at our church and he was the intermediary. I made it so that you had someone to talk to other than me. And he taught me how to break up with someone like you in the future. It's harsh. When someone just won't accept "no" or "I don't love you" or "it's over," you have to cut off all contact with them. Don't listen to their voicemail. Don't read their email. Don't call them back. Don't write them. In a few months, you might be able to do those things if they have let go. Give them their closure. I suppose that is the one thing I can thank you for: you taught me how to break up with manipulative men. So, thank you. That doesn't mean I want to hear from you, because I don't. Just sayin'.

So glad you're gone,
Robin


image found at www.weheartit.com

SNAPSHOT WEDNESDAY: JUNIOR HIGH DAY ONE

Tomorrow was a big day. It wasn't just the first day of school. It was the first day at a new school. Everything in my closet had already been in and out at least three times to be paired with at least three other things. Normally, I was not indecisive about these sorts of things, but this was the first day. First impressions are critical. This first impression might be the biggest of my life. We moved here a year ago, and I hadn't particularly bonded with any of the kids I went to elementary school with last year. I was pretty good friends with the girl down the street, so I felt good about having one friend. This was junior high, and there were going to be a lot of kids at this school. I didn't know how many exactly, but kids from several elementary schools were going to be coming here. And there would be 8th and 9th graders, too. It was a lot of pressure. I finally decided on the shirt that buttoned at the collar with blue flowers. It had some yellow in it, so I paired it with my yellow skirt. Normally, I am not much for skirts and dresses, but this was the first day. I felt my stomach muscles unclench a bit now that the choice was made.

The next morning, I walked down the street to pick up my friend, and we cut over to pick up another girl, and we all walked to school. It was a lot of nervous talking. No one knew what to expect. When we got there, I was shocked. It was chaos. There were people everywhere. The halls were filled with kids. The school was three stories, and there was still no room to move. As that fact took root, something even darker became apparent very quickly. There was nothing in my closet that would have been "right" for all of the people confidently taking up space in the hallway. Did they carry hundred dollar bills in their purses and wallets?


My goal became just to get through the day. I hung on to my schedule like a lifeline. Each time the bell rang, it was a nightmare. It was a wall of bodies coming toward me. Terrifying. Reflexively, I held my breath, closed my eyes, and held my books to my chest, preparing to be trampled. When that didn't happen, I opened them realizing that they walked around me. I slowly let it out. Knowing that would not stop this reflex from happening in the future. As I moved from class to locker and back, I heard things and the pieces fell into place about this place. All of the kids who lived within walking distance of this school, like me, were from lower middle class-middle class families. The other kids were from the hill and they came in on buses. They were from upper middle class-rich families. In fact, they were from the wealthiest families in the entire town.

Standing outside Health class, waiting for the teacher to arrive, one of these kids from the hill started to talk to me. She wasn't like the rest of them. She was obviously one of them, but she was nice. Her name was Jennifer and she was my first "Instant Connect." We became best friends. Not that day, but just about. She didn't fit in with them, either. In our own ways, we were both navigating these shark infested waters completely on our own. No one had our backs. In my case, I didn't grow up with my fellow grade schoolers, and she grew up with the sharks. We didn't know it, but we started building a raft that day. In the future, other people would hop on. People from other elementary schools that we didn't yet know. There was blood in the water all of the time. Sometimes ours.

I mistakenly thought that first day that it was safe if you were in class. Only at lunch and in the halls were you really in danger. It is thinking like that, that can cause some serious injury.

Everyone had Music class. I thought I would like it. The teacher was really cute. First impressions. I sat down with eagerness. I opened my notebook anticipating finding out what this class was going to be about. A broad outline of what we were going to cover this year. This semester. This month. Whatever. The teacher started off calling the roll. Not surprising. Once the person raised their hand, he looked them up and down, and then provided commentary on their appearance. I felt the blood drain out of my face. Could this really be happening? Yes. On and on it went. Each time everyone laughed. Of course, the rich kids got the nicer comments, because their was less to nitpick with them. Less to find wrong. Less ways to make them feel badly about themselves. I was at the end of the alphabet. I started praying fervently that the bell would ring before he got to me. That didn't happen. I braced myself for it. "Living example of a JC Penney Back To School Sale." I smiled as big as I could. Everyone laughed the required laugh. Some people laughed the for real kind. Some people thought he was hilarious. Mostly the rich kids who liked to see everyone's self-esteem blown to hell. It was fun to watch a teacher do it for a change. It validated all of the bullying they did.

Never was I more ready for a day to be over. As I walked out the doors and looked up at the engraved stone over the entrance announcing to the world that this was WOODROW WILSON JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL, I thought that they really should rename the place. WELCOME TO HELL was my first choice and much more appropriate.