There was a bright, yellow ball in the sky today that I haven't seen for what seems like a long, long time. Its warm reappearance brought w/ it a lightening of my mood. A walk w/ a friend and four softball games brought a reminder that there are good people in my life. The key is surrounding myself w/ family, friends, and friendly people and distancing myself from people who are negative and disparaging. Two nights ago I mentioned some women in this town w/ whom, to phrase it more politely, I was not very pleased. Now that the sun, pleasant conversation, and my daughters' ball games have put me in a happier place, I can share why I wanted to rip off the heads of a couple of women in this town.
I can handle these women being mean to me, but it tears me up to hear them bad-mouthing their own daughters. For example, one mother sat behind me at a softball tournament on Sunday. I heard her talk about her 13-year-old daughter in terms of "Oh, she wouldn't understand that," and "She's not the brightest light bulb in the bunch." The other mother sitting next to her laughed and made similar comments about her daughter. I quickly made my excuses for not being able to see and moved my chair far away. It's no wonder the daughter of the first mother has such a low self concept that she would take a picture of her naked breasts, attach it to a text message, and send it to a boy. That mother should be arrested by child abuse b/c she's definitely damaging her daughter.
I know Mom said some hurtful things to my siblings over the years, and I hope they can and have forgiven her. To me she always gave positive appraisals. She may have been disappointed in some of my choices, but she never berated me for those choices. Take the time I skipped school one day during my junior year of high school. My friend, Deb, and I wanted to ride mopeds so we left school w/o permission. However, while going to the boy's house who had the mopeds, we thought a teacher spotted us riding in Deb's car. We got scared and went back to school. The teacher hadn't seen us, but all the kids at school were talking about it so word got back to the principal. Yep, we got a three-day, in-school suspension for that little one hour joy-ride that didn't even include the mopeds. Facing the principal was no problem, but waiting for my mom to get home from work to tell her was agonizing. Mom's reaction was to call the principal to see if she could keep me home for three days instead so she could put me to work. I think I'm glad it turned out to be an in-school suspension. Mom taught me to face my problem head-on, and I am a strong woman due, in large part, to her understanding, praise and encouragement.
I've labeled tonight's post, "Yellow Balls" b/c each part of what I've just written involves a yellow ball. In case you're wondering how my train-of-thought is running: the first part involved the sun; the second part a yellow softball; and the third part a yellow tennis ball b/c that's what I was bouncing on my racket waiting for Mom to come home.
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