Wednesday, April 27, 2005

1st Follow up to: I hate to be told this too shall pass

I went to work today thinking of talking to my boss and saying 'I just want you to know'. I thought of asking him to make a code, so that I could call him and say "help". I thought of asking my son for his suggestions, but he's off somewhere untying bombs. My son would possibly tuck a bomb into his pocket and bring it home for me to throw at him. I thought of others I could ask for input.

And then the light went on. For Pete's sake, your work place has several West Africans in it.

Ok, I'm working. I see one of the West Africans come in. The confident one. Him! Ask him.

So I go "Sssssssssst!" It's been 17 years since I lived in Africa, but it just comes out. Actually it's a convenient way to get his attention, because I can't remember his name. In this country we go "Psssssssst." But I know if I omit the P he'll turn his head because he's African. He turns his head.

Our family used to use this to call each other in a crowded place when on furlough int he U.S. --- like church or the mall. If you went Psssst everyone would turn their head. But if you went Ssssssst, only the missionary kid would turn his head. Convenient.

So I ask him if he can come by my desk after he clocks in. I wait. I'm needing a cup of coffee. He doesn't come so I go upstairs.

I run into him. I say you are from West Africa, right? I said even though I lived in Africa 11 years, I need to ask you a question about African culture. Well, I tell him, I know each country is unique, but in your country is this normal? And I tell him briefly what happened. I say I never had to deal with this stuff when I lived over there because I was married.

He is smiling knowingly. I say I want to know [1.] what to do to stop this man from doing this without being mean (unless I have to), and [2.] how to understand it culturally.

He says he is starting with the second part, how to understand it. Yes. He says this is very normal. In Africa when a man is interested in a woman, he just goes directly at her just like that. In America you don't tell a woman that kind of thing.

Well, sorry for taking all the fun out of the story. It was much better an American cultural slant. And I don't feel quite so special any more. How many other women has he told he fell in love with at first sight?

I'm telling you, though, I saw a tall man with a blue shirt out of the corner of my eye today and I was looking for the first bin full of yellow bags to hide in.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

I hate to be told this too shall pass

Ok, I just have to write this out.
Yesterday at work I'm minding my own business (that is, I'm working!) and in comes a customer. He is tall, he is African, he is not unattractive. He greets me.
Greeting is very important in Africa, but he doesn't greet me the African way, how is your family?

He is looking at me and I feel a little uneasy. Nervous. I get the feeling he wants to stay there and talk a while. Fine, there are not many people coming in and out, but I feel nervous because he isn't making the conversation, I am. Now I've gotten used to that in my years of ministry experience...talking, asking questions of the other person, making them feel at ease. But I am an introvert and I don't really like it to go on and on with me being the initiator.
I am answering other customer's questions and cleaning out the yellow bags - removing maps, pencils, merchandise and hot dog wrappers with mustard on them.
I feel very ready to say, Ok then, have a nice day.
But he follows me over to the yellow bags and he asks me my extention number at my workplace and I give it to him but I'm thinking why does he want this and WHY DID I JUST GIVE IT TO HIM?
He says he'd like to call and just say hi sometimes in a friendly way.
I can't remember if there was other conversation going on.... I'm sure in my discomfort I was trying hard to change the subject. I know I asked him about his sister and he said she's in school. The first time he came in he was with her and she went into the store and he stayed and talked to me for a while. We talked about Africa. He is from a country in West Africa but I had never known anyone from his country. It seems in the years I lived over there, I met people from most the other countries in West Africa but not that one.

I am friendly and though I don't ask every African that comes in there what country they are from and I don't tell them I lived in Africa for 11 years, still, since he hung around, I suppose I was curious which country he was from and just was making conversation to be polite and --- I see my job as making people happy when they come in the door and helping them know how to navigate the store -- and if that means talking about Africa, good.

Anyway this is the 3rd time he has come in. The second time he reminded me of our first meeting and then I took a second look at his face and Oh, yeah, you're from ......
This time he had a return item and went and took care of it and came right back. Then I was chattering away about the store, being nervous, and I told him about when we have our sales and that there is one room that always has sales. He went and checked that out and came back.
Honestly, he asked me if he could leave his phone number and whether I could call him sometimes and just say hi and have friendly conversation.
I do not want this.
I am busy at home and I do not want to make time for him.
I said you can leave your number but I won't call you. I don't call men. He said "no, no, it's not like that, Oh my God!"
He said I want to be like a son to you. OK, whew I'm thinking, a son, ok, it's not about relationship.
But he keeps talking and keeps saying get to know me, become friends and then after 3 or 4 months think about a relationship.
I tell him I think I'm old enough enough to be your mother.
My stomach has just turned a flip flop. What in the world am I going to do with this guy now?!
I'm glad I have 2 large bins of yellow bags in between him and me.
I have to help some customers and we are back at the greeter's desk and now I'm glad the greeter's desk is there putting space between me and this person who is making me very uncomfortable.
He asks for my phone number and I say no. He says cell phone and I say that's the same as calling my home and I don't want to give you my home number.
He says he doesn't care about any age difference. It's doesn't matter.
He has said when he first met me I was nice and he thought this woman - I think she likes Africans...he has asked sublty about whether there are racial issues. I say, it's not about race. I am pretty much in shock.

Ok I don't have time for dredging up every single detail, but he tells me that I'm breaking his heart and he's said Oh my God too many times (once is too many but he keeps saying it)
He says he has come back to the store many times looking for me, where is that woman?
He says the first time he came in he fell in love with me and that he believes in love at first sight.

Now I tell him if I were ever to have a relationship with a man again he would have to be 100% committed to Jesus Christ. I tell him that God is everything to me and that I could never even consider a relationship with a man unless he were also committed to Christ. I say He is my whole life. He has no response except that he can be everything I need. He can be everything to me.

Wow. And he is pressing his case, you don't know me and I don't know you. You have to let the person get to know you by getting closer not keeping them away...
on and on this conversation goes, it seems like a long time
it gets near closing and I have to take the gray box to the cash booth, but he waits for me. I feel uncomfortable walking away because he has told me already he likes the way I look and and way I walk.....please, where can I hide?
Right now I'm laughing because I've slept on it.
I wanted to go immediately when I got off, in fact I wanted to take my 2nd break and get my cell phone and call my coach and say HELP you're a male....I don't want to be coached about this, I want a consultation and you tell me plainly what do you say to this guy to shut him down. I've been too nice to him already, I can see that, but I had no idea what he was up to until tonight. just give me words and body language and all of it.
I'm too old to feel like I'm back in high school.
Anyway, I held fast and did not give my home or cell number. I'm thinking...what if he follows me home?!
I told him he was scaring me with that talk.
I told him I was laughing because he was embarrassing me. Honestly, he just kept standing there staring at me, and pleading with his eyes. His phone number was on a store map lying there on the desk. I didn't know what to do with my hands.
Finally he left.
I'm pretty keyed up emotionally as I do my closing duties. I'm talking to myself. The two guys in living rooms are being funny and I laugh with them. They are male; I feel the need to grab the first guy I see and say HELP, what do I do? How do you handle this? But I don't think they are the kind of guys to give helpful advice and I don't want anyone to know lest my friend comes back and people start gossiping about it. oh brother.
So I keep shaking my head. I can't believe this one.

When I get home, I think about writing this out. I've decided I don't need to call my coach and bother him, but rather I'll blog it and he can read about it (hi coach).
If my daughter hadn't come in I maybe would have called him.
Now my daughter and I talk. So I shift into mommy mode.
Lord, can You slow life down a little please?
We've talked a little I tell her there's a man from ......who told me he's in love with me at work. She throws her head back and laughs really hard. I laugh too, oh help, what do I do?
I tell her most of the story. I tell her I told him that I would never consider a realtionship with a man unless he had a relationship with Jesus at the center of his life. I tell her that I told him this 4 or 5 times. She notes that he does not listen to you. Tell him "from what I've learned about you already, you don't listen to me."
Well, I didn't think of that. it's SOMETHING!
My other daughter comes in and the first tells the second that mom has a man from ......in love with her at work. The second laughs with us and we all get on the bed and schmooze with the dog.
She says tell him you're a lesbian.
This really makes me laugh, but it's kinda too late for that.
I've been telling them I'm going to buy a fake booger and stick it in my nose when he comes in next time.
Laughter is good, very good at a time like this.
I tell the girls I'm going to get one of those paper measuring tapes and color it green and hang it from my nose.

Anyway this too shall pass. I thought about how my coach said did you ever have a problem when you went to bed and when you woke up you just had an answer? No, I don't remember ever having that experience.
But I say to myself, I don't like it when people say to me this too shall pass, because it feels like a way to negate the emotions you are experiencing. Your emotions sometimes make your friends uncomfortable and they think if they throw out this little phrase (and it is very true) that your emotions will go away and not inconvience them any more. Maybe that's too harsh. Sometimes they sincerely want to help by giving you perspective on the matter. But what I want is to have my emotions validated...........more on that some other time.

but this will pass (the sooner the better)
I did realize I don't need to let my feelings of being upset be front and center in my mind.
I thought: it's ok if I use this little cliche ON MYSELF: This too shall pass. I will figure out a way to keep the door firmly shut on this man and he will give up and not bother me.
I will ask my coach and a couple other respected Christian brothers how to deal with him and I'll do what the Lord indicates and HE will take care of things.
Now I need to get ready for the day.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

My first blog EVER.

In order to get started, I think I'll just close my eyes. This is new and it may take me a few minutes to get going.

I am happy that I have my hard drive wiped out and newly installed everything. It is evening and I will soon get the urge to go out running with the dog and I'll want to drive to the lake instead of going out in the neighborhood. The days are noticeably longer and I can get more done before I go out.

I don't like closing my eyes, because the sun is bright out there today and I like looking at it. I can hear the dog breathing as she sleeps.

I'm off course at the moment. I'm supposed to be finishing page one of my newsletter and emailing it to my coach, not to mention tomorrow is the last day for taxes and I have not started mine yet. I do have the software, which includes a form for filing for an extention. I may end up doing that.

Then I have a busy weekend helping Mabel cook and working, and I am sorry that I told my son I couldn't visit him because I couldn't get off work and I was helping Mabel. He sounded dissappointed. I am dissappointed too. But when he said I guess I'll see you this summer some time, I felt sad. So now I think I'll take off Sunday and go see him anyway even though I will only have Sunday evening with him. He's definitely worth the drive. I don't mind driving anyway.

I don't know enough about blogging. But I've jumped in anyway. Someone had the name I wanted already. I had no clue how to title it. I'll no doubt change the title after I figure out what I want write about.

For dinner tonight: leftover stir fried peppers and onions with cabbage and celery, on Thai rice with a piece of roasted chicken, sesame seeds. Not bad. These days I'm in the mood for stir fried peppers with color: red, yellow, orange and green. And the onions make it smell and taste wonderful. no gravy, but I tossed on some soy sauce. Wishing I had some duck sauce packets in the frig. No, not even any jelly or preserves.

This feels really awkward. I simply do not know enough. Who is going to read this? How will they know I'm here? I think I should go read other blogs first to see how it's done. But I don't want to be affected by others' writing before I put myself out there. I want to just show up on the web and be honest. How do I inform people I know? Email them? I do look forward to reading others' writings. I just don't want to make myself tainted my first time.

I love to freewrite, but this is not going to feel free for sure, at least not at first. With the possibility of lots of people reading over my shoulder as I type. Yikes. Don't be too cutesy. Don't pretend to be intellectual. Don't try to impress people. Don't this. Don't that. Restraints. Then no words will come out at all.

Freewrite is just write whatever comes to your mind. And mine is all over the place, like dreams, jumping from one thing to another. That is the way I think. Lots of people do, but probably I'm on the SHE end of the spectrum. Flylady defines a SHE as Sidetracked Home Executive. Now then, I have a job outside the home, so I'm not technically a SHE anymore. But when I'm home, I still am a SHE. (If you don't know who Flylady is, you can find her at flylady.net.)

I love my life now. I never dreamed I could reach such a depth of contentedness. And I have NOT arrived anywhere near the place at which I used to think I'd be happy. I am just happy living in this moment. I guess that's why I chose the title Present Chapter, or whatever I wrote...this present chapter? Doesn't matter.

I never dreamed. Not in a million years. I think at some stage, I had resigned myself to the Eeyore mentality (re: Winnie the Pooh's sad donkey friend, colored blue, head and tail dragging). That is, I thought, I'm just going to have to make the best of it. Huge reserves of stocism in my genes. I'm never going to make the people around me change, so I'll just have to cooperate for the sake of peace and growth in my family and put up with it. We can do what we can to make things better, I thought, but maybe I'm just not the happy type. It's my temperament to be on the down side.

But no more. I am still enjoying the surprise of this unexpected joy. I am deeply contented. Even though I have big goals I am working on and need to be working on, I have told my children that if I die tomorrow and never reach those goals, I will have died happy. I have finally figured out how to be content in the moment. This change is a 180 degree turn from the way I used to think when I was DEPRESSED. Duh.

I don't mean to say that I never feel down. But my overall countenance is smiling. God is smiling at me and I am smiling back. He is so good. I suppose the details of how I got from depressed to content will come out as I write. But I can't do it all in one log, now can I?

I think I will close with that for now and go out into the perfect spring temps and run with the dog, even if I did do it backwards and will no doubt wish I hadn't eaten before running.