Don’t Let Your Sadness Sink You
When I was in over my head, as a child, in my 20’s, I had a rickety little boat, which filled with water so easily, I didn’t have a prayer of staying afloat. I’d patch the holes to find another. I hated that boat. Hated people with fancy boats. Hated my parents for their lack of interest. Hated myself for hating.
Somehow, slowly and imperceptibly, I’ve learned to keep on rowing. Sadness, like a tidal wave, washed over my tiny boat, filling it with water and in the past I would just sit there, sinking, unable to call for help.
Snitty wrecked my little fence. Tore out the end panels and threw them in the garden and this time *I* called the police (their 6th time here but who’s counting?) It seems her little white rocks are as sacred as her fence and I’d come too close to them. A rational person might have conveyed this to me. Doug is away and I’ve had to process this on my own (he’ll be mad). This morning I had the thought, ‘keep rowing’. Don’t sit there and let your boat fill up with water (I’ve left the mess, as a testament to craziness. If I had Peonies still I’d fix it).
I have done nothing wrong (I welcomed her so beautifully when she moved in). I deserve love, happiness, respect. I am creating beauty for the enjoyment of others, and I aim to protect it against marauders. All things I could not tell myself in the past, through the shame of growing up with alcoholic parents. Bad things happen because you are bad. Because you deserve it. Because you subconsciously ‘asked for it’. Because you’re stupid. No wonder I just sat there and let my boat fill up with water!
I felt better when I had the thought, ‘keep rowing’. Less helpless and frusterated. I think Snitty has some control issues. I should enjoy sawing the 70 foot Pine and watch it smash against her house but I am rising above my anger. I have never met such a mean-spirited spiteful petty person. I’m just grateful to be aware, and I thank God, that if I am acting ‘crazy’ (as she put it), I will see it, or have a loved one call me on it. She lives alone, with Toto, in a scary bubble of her own invented reality. If I am crazy and *she’s* the good neighbor (as she attests), she’s even whackier than I thought.
So thank you, kind reader, for listening. What would I do without words? Without connection and community? Without Love? I might just wreck people’s gardens and feel justified.
LBM 6/20/2019 (I read somewhere poetry is political. Here’s my small contribution).
