The fact of the matter is this, we have options in life. We always have options. We, ironically, are in charge of ALL thoughts that enter our brains, and we can choose to NOT accept all of them. Thoughts can be snakes in the grass, bats in the attic, sparrows in the puddle, guinea pigs in a huddle, but we don’t have to encourage the critters we don’t enjoy, want, or need. Focus on the positive, or at least the neutral beasts that occupy our brains. Then practice breathing. Yes. Breathing in and out, slowly and deliberately visualizing not our thoughts, but concepts and ideas that are of a universal truth and nature that tend towards love, compassion, and forgiveness. Wrap the best of the thoughts in lovely bow, or attire them in practical trench coats, and just take a deep breath.
Tonight as I should have been doing my nightly meditation, I had a very bad trip down a very creepy pathway of very unproductive thoughts about a betrayal by a friend several years ago. It was, unintentionally on my part, a mutual betrayal in the end. What started out in my mind as a lovely close relationship was in actuality a miscalculation of personalities, places in the stream of life, jealousies, and adolescent left over karma/dharma as it were. When I first returned to the classroom after fifteen years of stay at home mom and part time college instructor status, I was paired with a “co-teacher” who was new to the district and from a small town due south east of the locale of my school. The small town appellation ending in “burrow” should have alerted me to what small minded gossip and manipulations were to follow, but I was blithely unaware of others’ motives and still married at the time to my ex and trying pseudo-successfully to raise two girls in the midst of crazy pre-teen and teenage hormoal insanity. I had in various ways been forced into a close working relationship with a woman I did not know or comprehend, and my admittedly “a practicing devotee of niave conduct in life” at that juncture, and not that proud to say I was “naive” with purpose and intent in many ways; I unfortuantely trusted her too quickly with information about my oldest daughter and the then head coach’s youngest child who was my daughter’s running buddy at the time. I was niave. Doe eyed. Silly. My daugther was on a wild tear through her Junior year, and I, the doe eyed mom who remained sympathetic to my own rules of drama, set up nicely and with gusto by my daughter’s just need for revenge, and my ex-friend’s need for righteous indignation–then later quid pro quo.
My ex-friend was the acerbic type, sarcasitc and Don Rickles type of insulting humor was her game. It felt familar to me, like my severely dysfunctional family of origin. I would later find out her father was a raging alcolholic, and she the happless victim of his rage after her mother died when she was only nine years old. A sad story, and one that I felt completely attune with since my mother’s issues in her years of raising me. I thought I understood the woman, and I thought I had her complete confidence and trust. What I didn’t count on was her “small town” ways of dealing with drama, with friendship, with that southern thing of “backing up your girl” in a fight. I did not comprehend that her not being a mom would color her opinion of my mothering, and her opinion of what choice to make if I spoke to her about my life as the mom of a teen. If I had known then what I know now, I would have kept my mouth firmly shut, and possibly lost out on another good yet painful lesson. The lesson is always the same lesson, and I, as usual, got to choose if I learned with pain or joy. This one was painful. As usual, I chose the hard road.
After almost a half year of conversations and co-teaching a class, my friend was in my room one day when I arrived at school devastated by my oldest’s rabble rousing ways and drunken behavior with the head coach’s daughter the weekend before. My ex had been hiding and would continue to hide a lot of my oldest’s forays into the party circuit thinking he was protecting us both from a bad gig—a fight in the aisle so to speak. The lie he told, protected, extended for the first semester of that year of several partying girls’ antics which ended up hurting not just me, my friendship, and my job relationships further down the road, but also my daughter later on due to blatant neglect of some fairly obvious parenting principles. I must take responsibility for my continued niave outlook as a major contributor in this debacle. That morning, shaken to the core of my niave mommy soul, I confided in my co-teacher that morning, and after purging myself of the hurt and anger at both my daughter for partying and risking her life, the other parents’ seemingly condoing this behavior, and my ex to whom I was still married at the time. I calmed down, and an hour later told my co-teacher as she returned to our classroom to not talk to any one about it. Unfortunately, she had already involved ALL the parents of ALL the teens involved via a veerrry southern tradition of tattle tale phone tag… rather like playing “rumor” on the adult scale.
In the interium, my oldest had banded together her friends and planned a counter attack, a devastating one that would hurt my ex-friend for the short run, and humiliate the adults involved who “told” as well as drive the stake in the heart of whatever friendship existed between this woman and myself. My daugher told a bold faced lie, and was backed completely by the other teens in the lie, and the “phone tag” tattle tale started by my friend was in the dirt before the umpire could call foul ball. My co-teacher ended the year in hot water with her second job of dance squad sponsor, and the parents and girls ostracized her to the point she resigned for the next fall. The other parents were livid at me, the co-teacher, and thought the girls were just precious victims of needless drama. The coach’s daughter was protected, and I was made out to be the gossip and liar— that I didn’t even see coming— by my simply by confiding in a woman who was out to gain power and assauge her painful childhood memories by punishing willful teens. I was completely unaware of all the mascinations going on until at least two years later. It was, at the time, a huge mess, and the lesson here? Teenage girls will, without a doubt, complete royally for the title of “Lady MacBeth” in any confrontation, and southern girls from small towns who had raging alcoholic daddies are nearly as deadly as pit vipers when engaged appropriately with good ole southern Protestant righteous indignation.
So, wrap up that niave outlook in life—that everyone else is to blame— in a big red bow, and take those negative drama producing thoughts, memories, or ideas and drape them in trench coat like the perverted creeps they are, and let go of them all. Boot those puppies to the curb. All I had to do to prevent that “painful” lesson was to choose differently. I could have confided in someone I had known longer, or simply kept my mouth shut. I could have taken responsibility for my daughter’s actions and not involved the other girl’s actions or her parents. All were guilty, but that is not for public consumption or a series of tattle tale phone calls, initiated in righteous indignation, perhaps, but nevertheless, useless unnecesary hurtful information. Who cares? Kids will be kids, and lies will be told by those who want to manipulate the situation. It in the long run, the lies and the anger only hurt me the worst; the girls got off scott free. The co-teacher got her revenge on me later politically, and not one, not even one of the gulity, were “punished” for the “drama” and the illegal “partying” in the way it should have gone down. So, would I now choose differently? Yes. Can I forgive the girls for lying? Yes. They were kids. Children. Can I forgive my co-teacher for the drama? Of course, because I have to take fair responsibility for creating it as well. Do I recognize I created my own comedy of errors that played out over the next several years? Yes. Do I forgive my ex for hiding the truth, but of course. I must. Each of the involved did what he or she thought best at the time, even if it was a STUPID best.
There is only one lesson. The lesson can be learned with pain or with joy. Most of the time, I feel I have chosen the path that included pain. So now, I gaurd my thoughts, and I see the critters coming in the trench coats, most nights, and I desire to choose love. Not fear, Not drama. Not gossip. Not disgust. Not anger. No, I desire now to choose love.
shannonleigh60 