Hot Child in the City

 

It's HOT in Toronto. The kind of heat that hits you like a wall when you walk out of your nice, air-conditioned office. Personally, I try to stay away from too much airconditioning and went all summer without one last year at home. Last night though, I couldn't take it anymore. I dragged my friend across the hall down to the basement, dug up Krista's old unit and through much huffing and puffing and eventually completely drenched in sweat, we managed to get it in the window. It's still too hot in my apartment to sleep. Oh well. Cat and I are staying hydrated. We're both getting old but we'll try to survive this heat wave. She spends most of her time lying on the tile floor by the front door. Maybe because it's cooler there, or maybe because she wants out of this heat box! In other news, as I started what will prove to be an epic couple of weeks of work (read: trying not to have panic attacks), I came out of work at 6:30 Monday night and realized I had missed a call. From my sister. At least I thought it was my sister, they never call me, so when my BlackBerry freaked out last month and deleted all my contacts, I just never bothered adding Linda and Erin back in. I called her back and they asked if they could pop by that evening - my mother had some things she wanted to drop off. Now the crux of this story is that my mother has decided to move to Panama to do missionary work for the JWs. She's actually leaving pretty soon, she already had a big sale and sold most of the stuff in her apartment. Without telling me she was actually moving to another country. Without asking me if I wanted any of our family possessions, before selling them on the cheap on Craigslist. Ok, those things are out of my control and I assume, knowing those two the way I do, this behaviour shouldn't really be shocking. Hey, I can understand if I'm too much of a sinner to hang out with on the weekends, but you're moving to another country? I'm still your daughter. A heads up would have been nice. But I guess I think that way because that's what I would do in that situation. So they show up. I smile, give them both a big hug. I don't mention the fact that neither of them included me in any of this process. I try not to gag while they excitedly go on about how great it is they are both "pioneers" now. Congratulations! Welcome to slaving in the hot hot heat in the summer and slushing through the snow in the winter, to have doors slammed in your face or - worse - finding innocent people to convert to your crazy sect. All the while, living in tiny apartments, with roomates, making minimal money because who has time to have a career when you do 70 hours of "volunteering" a month. I did it for 14 years, you couldn't pay me enough money to knock on someone's door and talk about the Bible (as interpreted by the JWs) ever again. But if that's what they want, and they truly are happy, I'm happy for them. I see a bit of a disconnect in the fact that you can spend that much time every month trying to "help" strangers but refuse to have any real relationship with your daughter/sister. But I guess I see the world a bit differently these days. One box was ok, I unwrapped pretty wine glasses that belonged to my great-aunt and was happy those didn't get sold for 25 cents in a yard sale. And we all know, I can always use a few more wine glasses. The second box though was what really got me. All the gifts I had given her over the years - returned. My grade school report cards, some pictures of me as a kid. If she's trying to erase her oldest kid from her life, this is the way to go. It's hard not to take it that way. Icing on the cake: she included the dress she wore to my EFFING WEDDING. A subtle reminder again, of what I had, what I've lost. What am I really going to do with that? Wear it? Burn it! Now, if I had a boyfriend, who I really loved but it didn't work out (stay with me on this, I have a point), I wouldn't package up everything he'd ever given me and send it back to him. That, in my eyes, would just be hurtful. If I got to the point where I wanted to get rid of his stuff, because I wanted to move on, and it bothered me to keep it, I would pack it up and drop a box off at Goodwill. My mother and sister, to me, are like that bad ex. The one who you really, truly loved and you just can't move on when he keeps showing up, inconsistently, out of the blue, to say hi, or tell you how great his life is now that he's moved on from me. I had one like that, and while I always tried to smile, stay friendly, be happy for him, it tore me up on the inside everytime he would pop back into my life out of the blue. And remind me of what I had lost. Still working out my guilt issues, I would have felt mean to tell them not to come over with their boxes. But I have friends who say they would have told them to just drop it to the Salvation Army and leave them alone. I have friends who have shown up this week while I cried my way through getting over this, who say I'm doing really well, and I've been really happy, but everytime I let one of them show up in my life again, I'm un-doing all the progress I've made the past four years. Another friend sent me a message and said if she's learned anything about me, it's that I'm tough as shit. Yah, you kind of have to be. I don't know how to not care about the way they treat me. I'm not like that. I know the thought process behind it. I know the Witnesses teach that this is the right way to treat someone who has left - withhold your love and relationship, and eventually, we'll get so sad and lonely, we'll see the error of our way, and come back. For me now, these actions have the opposite effect. Everytime I'm reminded that this is how they are conditioned to treat their family - all the other things that they profess to display: love, kindness, compassion, forgiveness  - seem empty and hypocritical. Ironically, my daily Buddhist newsletter this morning had the heading: Dealing with Shit. This is what it said:  "You deal with your shit in Zen by sitting with it. By breathing right into it. You don’t try and ignore it with pleasant thoughts or lofty ideas, and you don’t try and bury it with solutions. You deal with it, you work with it, one breath at a time." It reminded me of one of my favorite books, Tuesdays with Morrie. When he was dying, he was asked how was it that he didn't give in to self-pity or anger over the situation. And he said, he did. Instead of running from the negative emotions, he left himself feel them - really feel them. That he would take a little time in the morning, and if he felt sad or angry, he'd let himself feel it. He would cry if he needed to. But only for a few minutes. Then he put it away, smiled and went on with his day. This week, this situation, has made me sad again. A little bit sad, a little bit angry that it seemed to be intentionally hurtful towards me. But I was able to smile at them and be kind. I didn't let them in to the hurt I felt, because what's the point? It would just reinforce with them how successful this solution is to keep your family who have left considering the option of going back. That's really not an option for me anymore, it hasn't been for a long, long time. Especially now that the wheels are in motion for much bigger, broader communication on these issues, that will have my name all over it. At that point, I probably won't have to worry any more about random drop-ins or reminders that I have half a family out there that I will never be close to anymore. In my mother's own words: her priority is her "spiritual children" in her congregation. I'm glad she has them. I've built my own new "family" in Toronto too, we're not perfect, but we have a yacht. :) It's been a bit of a bumpy week but I'll get through it. One breath at a time.