Dear Cali Chica:

(not doing the exercise at this point)

You asked me the day before yesterday: “I want to also ask you something- what I asked my mom: Why should we be positive/optimistic?”

I will answer you now: you and I shouldn’t try to be positive/optimistic, we should do our best to be realistic. Aim at Real, not at Positive or Optimistic.

“corporations treat us like cogs in a wheel.. these big finance execs..”- this is reality, better not try to put a positive spin on it. It will be fooling ourselves to see things not as they really are.

“when I ask a young man kindly to allow an elderly lady to sit in his spot on the subway” and he refuses- a subway reality, better not put a positive spin on it (what that would be, I don’t know, but why try).

But it is also reality that your mother told you a lot of things that weren’t true to reality, so when you correct those untruths, it is not putting a positive/optimistic spin on it, it is correcting untruths that you were fed with. For example: “this is annoying, some people just act however they want and they’re fine”- your mother said that. Let’s examine what she said: she said that some people act however they want. Reality- sometimes they do, often they don’t. She herself acted however she wanted just as often as other people, but not always, just like other people.

For example, she said to you whatever she wanted. She wanted an exciting life but stayed home just like so many other  people who stay at a job that is boring and grinding. She stayed in a marriage with a man she didn’t find attractive, just like many other women. She had an affair, right there she “acted however she wanted”, didn’t she? And she too went to sleep at night, didn’t she?

Bit by bit chip away at the untruths until you have nothing but the truth and your anger will diminish. There will still be that lack of respect for doctors, still be corruption, injustice, reality, but at least you will unburden yourself from the bs- injustice you heard your mother speak of. You will see how she harmed you with injustice practiced against you more than the corporations, the corrupt executives, more than the rude young man hurt the older woman in the subway by not letting her sit in his spot.

I say, your mother didn’t allow you to sit.. did she, to sit in peace.

anita

Dear Cali Chica:

I hear you loud and clear: “she did not allow me to sit at all- ever. Never. I was never able to, and never have, sat in peace. Ever.”

Once you do sit in peace, long enough, it will hurt, I think, because of all the anger about why you weren’t allowed to all those years, to simply sit in peace. Sort of: why now, why not alllll this time!?

The anger, like mine regarding my own mother, is two fold (with many folds in each):

1. The injustice she personally and single handedly practiced against you, that was real and personal.

2. The injustices she complained about, those she said others practiced against her, most of which (with the exception of that which was done to her in her childhood) were untrue.

The result of these two things, you are lacking people with whom you can feel close and stay close, calm, in peace, including with your husband and all by yourself, close and staying close to yourself.

Because you were one of those people she complained about, one of those guilty of her alleged, made up injustices.

I suppose the only people she allowed you at times to be happy with were the friends you played with, so maybe this is why you seek them and not your husband, you keep inviting friends to play with you because this is what you did as a child and throughout.  Sometimes she was happy when you did that.

anita

Dear Cali Chica:

Sitting quietly, feeling close to another, quietly close, quiet and close, with yourself as well, that means that you are like the other people your mother complained about, the people who can sleep at night even though they are doing wrong to her–

– maybe you don’t want to be like those people, betraying your mother and going about their lives as if they didn’t.. they should feel guilty and act like it too, guilty. They don’t deserve peace, do they?

anita

Dear Cali Chica:

This is what I thought a while ago, loyalty to her. Being on her side, not sleeping well at night, worrying, not like those other people. Like S, S is like those other people. S annoys you because she is one of those other people.

I wonder if… you have been raining on your husband’s parade,  so to speak, distressing him so that he too will not be like those other people, calm, sitting quietly. Maybe you have seen him quiet and calm, got annoyed and pushed him over to.. your mother’s side.

anita