Dear Anita,

Good segue into resuming the exercise.

Guilt:

Today I made a card for Cara, she is a girll in my class.  I made a card out of my construction paper, I used the red or pink one – the ones I save as they are the best colors.  I cut it out in the shape of a candy, you know those hard candy that have two ties on each side, like crinkly.  I wrote something on it, something like hi friend, or have a good day friend.  I want to make it for her because she is my friend now, and I didn’t think she would be because she is popular.  Maybe if I give her this card she will be happy and stay my friend.

It is hard to  be friends with the popular girls.  they are friends with each other  they always have new clothes, and they act however they want. sometimes they act bad because they have lots of boyfriends, or they care more about boys than school. but they are lucky because they have each other and a good friend group.  sometimes I get to talk to them and sit with them too, but I don’t want to leave my other friends and make them feel left out.  If i just ditch them and go to the cool people – well that’s not right.  That’s not what good friends do. Iwould feel bad about this – guilty.

My mom always told me how all the boy girl stuff is bad, and that I am too young for that stuff.  LIke on TV when people kiss and all, she usually doesn’t want me to  watch this.  When I go to my American friends house, they always watch 90210 – their moms are never home or they don’t care. In gym class we are going to do square dancing, so I have to have a boy partner.  For some reason I feel so bad about this. So I went home and told my mom.  She thought it was cute and funny, and said of course you willl have a boy partner for this – that is perfectly fine and okay.  I don’t know why I felt so bad about it – I really did. But my mom told me it is okay.

When we go to India, we stay at my dad’s sides house.  His brothers and family llive there and his parents.  His family is cunning and jealous. My cousins there sometimes I have fun with, but sometimes they taunt us and make us feel bad.  I feel bad that my mom got treated so bad by my grandma (my dad’s mom).  She used to be so bad to my mom after my mom and dad got married.  She would call her horrible names, and make her cry everyday.  When my dad would hit my mom, my grandma thought it wasn’t bad – a lot of those grandmas felt thats how to control a new wife.  My dad’s brothers wives were all mean to my mom too, and gang up against her.   When I go to India I feel bad about this.  I see my grandma and she tries to be nice to me, but I know she is bad.