Silly Question & Silly Answer – Email with a Former Lover

Recently, Jean wrote that she missed me.

I wrote back asking what about me she missed. I titled it “Silly Question,” because I wasn’t sure she’d even know and wondering why I was pursuing it, anyway, as we’ve been estranged for some years over some things I said during our break-up that caused her some trouble with child custody arrangements later.  What I said was true, but it was neither kind nor necessary and an apology wasn’t going to take back the consequences.

Here is my first email:

There may not be a way for you to answer this, but for some reason, the past couple of days, I’ve been wondering:
 
You have said a couple of times that you miss me.
 
What is it that you miss about me? 
 
Maybe there’s a way to have/share that without threatening your security about confidentiality and Stuff?

She replied:

Not a silly question.
 
With the exception of the times I find you either bitchy or inappropriate, I miss your company.  In addition to being a think first, dynamic Priest, I often experience you to be bright, thoughtful, interesting, and stimulating.
 
You’d think these things wouldn’t be hard to find, but sadly, I find that they are.
 
Hope this helps.

Jean

So, I tried this:

How can I share those things with you without threatening the safety & security of your confidentiality concerns?
 
Email comes to mind. Just a thought.
 
Love, Ann

Jean wrote:

You can to some extent, but probably not very deeply, as I have learned that I can’t ever trust you to not turn against me if you are hurt and/or I cannot trust in your judgement of what constitutes inappropriate behaviour.
 
On the surface, it can be fine, but I always need to watch myself, protect myself, be on guard.
 
That’s why I am angry and sad.  IMO, your behaviour cost us our friendship.

Jean<

So, stepping totally out of my business and into hers, I sent:

Jean, when you learn how not to place the cause of your happiness or unhappiness outside of yourself – no matter what – well, if you ever do, we’ll see what happens.

There isn’t a single true sentence in your email.

That’s not an attack. It is the kindest thing I could possibly tell you. Knowing that, in anything, would instantly, infinitely and permanently change your life in every way you ever dreamed of wanting and more.

I know me. I’ll continue to check in sometimes, see how you’re doing, whether you’ve . . . there’s a Hitchhiker’s Guide quote for the moment.  Arthur Dent is lying in front of the bulldozer in Act I, Scene I, and Mr. Prosser the foreman, asks Ford Prefect, “Has Mr. Dent come to his senses?”  Ford replies, “Can we assume, for the moment, that he has not? And that he’s going to be lying in front of this tractor all day?”

Nevermind, that may not be funny to you for lack of HHGG familiarity and the other stuff.

I’m not saying what I did was right. I am only saying that it’s over. The same way I do regarding my father. That situation ended completely and forever in 1975.  To continue to beat myself up with it, would only hurt myself. Therefore, Daddy and I have a fine relationship. I generally don’t bring the past into it. He apologized. He never did it again. Those events are over and done with, forgiven, even when I experience things that seem to be the effects of that.  I now know that these are really only the effects of my thinking.

Mind you he didn’t change, either. I know who he is and I love him like that.

Notice the truth and lies disappear.

Alright, enough typing. I’m going to post this on the blog.

Don’t worry – I’ll use a pseudonym there.

Did you know that part of the way people are able to write memoir in our country without being sued is that truth is a defense in a court of law? Stories about events have many sides, as evidenced by eye-witness accounts, just minutes after the fact, of any newsworthy event that has ever occured.

I miss you, too. I am reluctant to stop typing because I may not have occasion again for a while.

Love, Ann

I miss her sometimes, too.  She’s right where she always was, though, in my thoughts.

Katie says, “No two people have ever met.”

Happy Towel Day!

Douglas Adams’ books in “increasingly misnamed” Hitchhiker’s Guide trilogy helped me to laugh, keep my perspective and get through some years when I used to think I was depressed, sad, lonely, not getting what I want, etc. I can quote it up one wall and down the other. 

There is a HHGG quote for every occasion.  (I have a friend who says there is a Ghostbuster’s quote for every occasion. He’s right. Same for Mel Brooks movies, Monty Python, and more. I just happen to have latched onto Hitchhiker’s Guide.)

Today, boys and girls, today is towel day. I will be carrying mine.

So, without further delay, let me share this with you from  http://www.towelday.kojv.net/

You sass that hoopy Douglas Adams? Now there’s a frood who knew where his towel was. You are invited to join your fellow hitch hikers in mourning the loss of the late great one. Join in on towel day to show
your appreciation for the humor and insight that Douglas Adams brought to all our lives.

What do I do?

Carry your towel with you throughout the day to show your participation and mourning.

When do I do it?

May 25th.

Where do I do it?

Everywhere.

Why a towel?

To quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value – you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold
moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of
Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast
of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a bush, but very, very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of
course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is
also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily
lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it,
slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

 

Adrenaline or Peace ? You Pick

This morning I got an email from someone in my brunch group. It was long, but at the center of it was something like this:

“I’m writing a personal note to you to share something with you that I believe could significantly add to the richness of your already amazing life. A few months ago I became involved with HUB- Humanity Unites Brilliance. HUB is where we connect to change the world. HUB is an opportunity to live your life’s purpose AND create sustained abundance for you personally or for your non-profit. I believe it’s a huge opportunity!
 
I’m writing to invite you to join me for 5 days in Long Beach, CA, June 18-22, for an experience you won’t forget! The cost for the event is $2500 per person, but it is FREE TO YOU.  I get to take 3 people for FREE, and I’d like you to be one the three on my personal list. If you’re interested please let me know ASAP (first come, first serve) so that I can save a space for you, as I know these free passes will go soon! The 5 days will be filled with great inspiration from top business leaders, social change artists, and empowerment coaches, in-depth education from some of the most brilliant minds in the world, and a sense of community like I’ve never experienced anywhere else. “

Oh really?  Well, I did her the courtesy of replying:

Dear Tooth Fairy,

I can see you’re all full of  . . . may I be honest?  Adrenaline about this.
 
I used to read things like this and think “Oh, this could be it! This could be how I (fill in the blank).   No, take that out of parenthesis. I thought it was how I could fill in the “blanks” I thought I saw in my life.
 
I’ve since learned that I was mistakenly equating these adrenaline highs with truth or some kind of guidance. And I learned this from my own experiences, as well as from listening to the seed-thoughts of Steven Sashen’s blogs.
 
Let me counter your invitation with another one. OK?
 
As you go through this process you are in, just ask yourself a couple of questions when you think of it.
 
1.  Is this peaceful or stressful?  (and go for truly peaceful – not excited, not jazzed, not OMG this is fabulous – peaceful)
 
2.  Whose business am I in?  (God’s, someone else’s, or mine)  with a potential sub-question, when I’m over there in their business, who’s taking care of my business?
 
 
I’m sure HUB is a fine organization with good intentions. And it’s not for me.
 
Here is a second invitation for you.
 
Read some of Steven’s Anti-Guru Blog.  I know you are packing your time with so much excitement (for me that reads “stress”) that you may feel you have no time, and what you do is entirely up to you.
 
But I’ll give you a link to one that might really apply and you can look at some of the other jewels in there if you want. They are both offerings of new words for our dictionary:
 
 
http://sashen.com/blog/49/manifrustration/
 
 
http://sashen.com/blog/51/hoping-to-be-a-successhole/
 
 
http://sashen.com/blog/
 
 
I wish you all the best.  Hope to see you at brunch when this wears off. You’re a truly wonderful individual.
 
Love, Ann