The Saga Continues...

I can't seem to figure out why, whenever I try to do something nice for someone, I end up getting the shit end of the stick. It never fails. Every time I help someone out, it comes back to bite me in the ass for no good reason. It happens to me all the time and, just today, the neighbor who'd been in the hospital last week, stood at my front stoop screaming and yelling at me, telling me I had no business watching her kids while she was away; and that her husband, the one from whom she's separated, had no right to ask me to do it. She went on and on about how he’s a piece of trash, that I didn’t take that good of care of her children, and that he and I had no business even speaking to one another.

The entire time she was screaming at me, I just sat on the step and let her vent, although I really wanted to stand up and tell her what a jackass she is. Rather than being grateful that someone was even there to watch her kids, and that they didn’t have to spend time with their dad while he was at work, she’d rather bitch and gripe because he didn’t do exactly what she wanted when she wanted it done. Then, to go off on me, when I did absolutely nothing wrong, was completely insane. Whatever her problems are with her husband, she doesn’t need to put me in the middle of it all. When she'd stop to take a breath, I would tell her that all we did was talk, that I watched and fed her children, and that she needed to take her problems up with herself because I didn’t want any part of it.

She also spent time telling me what a bad mother I am-which I absolutely know is untrue-and the entire time she was screaming at me, my kids and hers, as well as all the neighbors, were standing there watching and listening. When I pointed out to her that she had no business discussing my parenting skills when she wasn’t, at that moment, setting a very good example for her children, her response was that she didn’t care that her children were standing there watching. Nice, right? At that point, I politely dismissed her. I told her I was finished listening to her and that she needed to leave, then I told her to have a nice day. She just looked at me and said she wouldn’t have a nice day, to which I responded, “Well, I guess that’s your choice, and you really can’t blame that on anyone but yourself.” So she walked away, and headed promptly to another neighbor’s house to vent about me, all the while still screaming in front of her kids.

Later this evening, I was sitting on my stoop talking on the phone to my friend Connie while my kids played outside when I noticed her husband come home from work, then start loading his belongings into his truck. I’m not sure if she told him to leave, or if he chose to leave. I had called him earlier in the day to report his wife’s behavior, and to let him know that if she ever came to my home screaming at me again, I’d have her arrested for harassment. Then, I’d apologized to my kids, and to hers, for them having to listen to her scream and rant the way she did. I thought that was only fair. So I don’t know if they spoke during the day or what, but I do know that, as he was getting in his truck to leave, she again stood on her stoop yelling at him, and threatening him, while my daughter, 3 years old, was standing near our home listening to the whole thing. This woman has absolutely no respect for the fact that there are others on this planet besides her.

I really want to let this go but I’m having trouble with it. I’m not the type of person to turn people down when they want favors, but I’m really getting tired of all the ungrateful assholes who want to throw their shit on me when I’ve spent my time helping them. I also don’t want my kids to see me treat people that way because that’s not the way I want them to be. I want them to be able to help people when it’s needed but not get the wrath that I always get. As my friend Connie pointed out to me when I told her all about it, “No good deed goes unpunished.” After today, I’m inclined to believe that, however, I really don’t want to. I want to believe that people actually appreciate it when others offer assistance. I know I do. I’m completely and totally grateful for all the help I’ve received over the past few years and would never dream of turning on any one of the people who’ve been there for me when I needed them. I know I’m not the only one, and it sure would be nice to meet some others.

Right now, I’m just counting my blessings. I’ve got three beautiful children, wonderful family members, and some spectacular friends, most of whom I know personally, and others whom I met during my online college experience and have only spoken to on the phone, but have “known” for a few years. I would do anything for any of them, at any given time, in any give place. As far as my helping neighbors and acquaintances again in the future, that remains to be seen

Rumors and other junk

I'm sitting here wondering how people can have so much time on their hands that they have nothing better to do than to interfere in the lives of others. See, I live in HUD subsidized housing, for the time being. I've just finished my Bachelors Degree, and I'm in the process of trying to get work so I can save money and move. I've lived here just over two years, while I was attending school, and have come to know many of my neighbors, most of who don't work, or do anything else, for that matter. While I wouldn't really call them friends, I do know a lot about them just from the short talks we have while we're sitting outside when our children are playing together; what I hear from them, stays with me; I never pass on any information that is private. Recently, though, something has changed in the cul-de-sac. People who were friendly just two weeks ago have suddenly started shunning me, talking behind my back, and turning my children away from their doors.

There’s one neighbor I talk with who is pretty nice, but who suffers from mental illness, so her moods flip-flop constantly. She’s got two children and her estranged husband living with her. They’ve both told me, at different times, that they no longer have a marriage but that it’s economically feasible for him to be there to help with the bills, and convenient for him to help with the kids when symptoms of her illness take over and she’s incapable of doing so. That’s all well and good; but none of my business. Still, we all talk-she and I, he and I-whatever.

A couple of weeks ago he came into my home to fix an appliance and a few days later the wife tells me that there is a rumor going around that I’m having an affair with her husband. She said it was stupid, but that she didn’t even care because they aren’t together any more. I had to laugh because anyone in the area that knows me knows that I’m sitting at my computer most nights, alone-and my computer is on the wall directly opposite my living room door. Anyone who looks can see what I’m doing. Besides, regardless of the fact that they’re separated, as they say, they’re still married and I’m just not interested in getting in the middle of that. In retrospect, just from other things she’s said to me about herself and her “marriage,” I realized that she got the “affair” idea all on her own because of her illness. So be it.

Last week, however, she had a bad episode and had to be hospitalized for about a week. While she was away, I was helping her husband take care of the kids. I took them to school, since they go with my kids; I picked them up from school when I picked up my own kids; I child-sat them while their dad was at work; and I fed them dinner because he got home past a regular dinner time. He’d get home and take the kids home to get them ready for bed and school the next day. On the weekend, they were with me all day so he could work his second job.

In the evenings, after all the kids-mine and his-were in bed, he and I would talk-either me at his place, him at mine, or out on the front stoop. Our front doors were wide open so we could watch for our respective kids if they got out of bed, or needed us for any reason. We’d talk and watch TV. What we didn’t realize, for a day or so, was that his wife had called another neighbor to keep an eye on us. They would talk on the phone daily and the wife would ask questions of the neighbor, who, in turn, would give her report, however the information she gave was completely untrue. Not only would the spying neighbor watch us from her windows, but she went into other neighbors’ homes and watched us-I guess to get different visual angles-thus spreading the lies and rumors further through the cul-de-sac. She had to explain why she wanted in their homes.

The wife came home a few days ago and things have gone completely downhill since then, although they had started to go badly a few days before. Because the spying neighbor twisted the truth in her own mind, and because she believed whatever she’d heard from a mentally ill friend, she began to form her own opinions of me, and won’t even let my three-year-old daughter into her home to play with her own little girl. She’s always got an excuse for keeping my daughter from playing, and sends her home where my daughter cries to me because she isn’t allowed to play. This was almost every day when the wife was away, and still continues. Not only does the spying neighbor not have the common sense to realize that the information she’s receiving from her friend is all imaginary, but she’s feeding these delusions with her own made up information, making the mentally ill neighbor that much more unstable.

Now, most everyone in the cul-de-sac has stopped talking to me and him, and all because nobody has bothered to ask either one of us the truth. Geez, if talking is a crime I should have been arrested years ago. What I find really funny is that I’ve always gotten along with men better than with women simply because of things like this. If I tell a man something personal, he keeps it to himself; if I tell a woman, there’s a good chance it’ll be spread to everyone who wants to listen. That’s why my friends are few and select, and I trust them implicitly. This spying neighbor, not a month ago, was telling my daughter that she was my friend. I’m sorry, but friends don’t do things like this to each other; and they certainly don’t bring their children into the middle of it the way she’s doing with my daughter.

I feel bad for her because she needs so much excitement in her life that she’s willing to lower herself to the point that she has. I can handle whatever she wants to toss my way, but my daughter is too young to understand. Not to mention the fact that Zach, my six year old, was asking me yesterday why this woman was telling lies about me. I had to explain to him that it was adult business and that he doesn’t need to worry about it. Now that’s really sad. I’m trying to raise my kids to be honest and respectful of others, and then they see a trusted adult doing exactly what I’m teaching them not to do.

I really wish my neighbors had more ambition in life than to sit around gossiping and spreading rumors. Let’s just hope they grow up before their own children realize what they’re doing and turn out just like them.

Because I Didn't...

When I was in my early twenties, and years before my mother died, I remember that she, my sister and I sat at our dining room table one day looking through a box of drawings and art projects my sister and I had made as children. My mother had found them so special that she saved them. As we look through the artifacts we laughed so hard we were crying, all three of us. The pictures and greeting cards were laden with mismatched colors, disproportionate figures, and misspellings that ran down the side of the page when there wasn’t enough room to finish writing across the top. Since we thought they were so funny, I asked my mother how she never laughed when we brought these works of art home and presented them to her. Her answer was a simple, “Because I didn’t.”

Just last week I found that box in my basement, now only filled with the works made by me as my sister’s had been returned to her years before. I decided to look through that box again, by myself this time, in the quiet, after my kids had been put to bed for the night. It had been, at least, ten years since I’d been through it last so I didn’t remember much of what was in it. I do know that some of the pictures went back to when I was three years old as the only drawing labeled with a date had my name, along with “1970” written in my mother’s handwriting. I could only speculate on my age when the rest of the art was made, unless I could specifically remember making it. This time, however, I didn’t laugh; I marveled at the simplicity of the earlier pictures drawn by a child who was probably so happy to be coloring that, to her, it was a masterpiece; and at how the art got better as time passed.

Today, Zach drew a picture for me: an orange, sunset sky that stopped a third of the way down the page, green grass that stopped a third of the way up the page-the two never meeting at the horizon; and the two of us standing together on the lawn. The fact that he is as tall as I am in the picture doesn't matter, even though he's a good 18 inches shorter than I am in real life. His head is way too small for his body, and his arms are longer than his legs. My hands are as large as my face, my legs are virtually non-existent, and my hair is green, along with my entire wardrobe because, he said, my favorite color is green. He's right about that. There was absolutely no way I could laugh when I saw his drawing because, to me, it was, and is, a beautiful depiction of a mother and son standing together at sunset; and he was filled with pride when he gave it to me and received a big hug and kiss in return.

While looking through the box last week didn’t bring back many memories, I did recall that conversation I’d had with my mother years before-and how she never laughed at our work. I also know that I’ve never laughed when my children have presented me with one of their drawings or cards from the time they could hold crayons; and I save many of them, just as my mother did, so my kids can see them when they're older. The pictures look just like what my sister and I did as children, and are getting better with each passing day; and they give my children a huge sense of pride and accomplishment. The joy on their little faces when I accept their gifts says everything. Now, I completely understand my mother’s answer to me, and, years from now, when my children put that same question to me, “Mom, how did you not laugh when we gave these to you?”, I’ll simply smile and say, “Because I didn’t.”