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<blockquote data-quote="Copabanana" data-source="post: 679519" data-attributes="member: 18958"><p>You kn ow at Costco today, I bumped into my cousin. She is several years older than I am. She was my accountant for 10 years, and now retired. She is my paternal aunt's youngest child.</p><p></p><p>She did not recognize me right away, but I did her. Except she had lost some weight and looked older. </p><p></p><p>I was warm and open. She seemed glad to see me. More relaxed than usual. Usually she is reserved, a little tense and cool. I am somewhat afraid of her. She keeps her cards in her vest. As you know about me, I show all my my own.</p><p></p><p>The talk went well. She told me about her travels, to Brasil and Peru, and her upcoming trip to. Europe. It was time to part. "I have a mission she said. Oh. Great to see you.</p><p></p><p>After parting I felt somewhat vulnerable and ashamed. Like I always do with her. Mildly rejected. That I always show too much. She had seemed glad to see me. But I felt she was polite. That I am still little Debbie *not my real name, with nobody and nowhere to go.</p><p></p><p>Flooded with these feelings, I ran to follow her, for some inexplicable reason and I said this: You know I come to live here in xxx by accident. I have not really chosen it because I wanted to be here. But I find there is something I really love about it here. People are warm and friendly to me. They talk to me. And I talk to them. I am so happy about that. That would not happen in Big City.</p><p></p><p>Yeah, she said. If they talk to you they want something.</p><p></p><p>We said goodbye for real, and I finished shopping. For the life of me, I do not know what I was saying by that speech and why I needed so to say it. Was it the shame and sadness that flooded me after meeting her? Was it to speak up for myself? (Because this woman as a girl knew me as a child. Nobody in my life now has known me that long. She knew me as a child that came to her home and her town. And really had nobody.</p><p></p><p>Is the shame and sadness and mild rejection coming from so many years ago, or not?</p><p></p><p>Strangely in the store where I had gone right before, as I was checking out, and engaging in animated conversation with the checker *about a certain liquor, which I am wont to do. I love to chat. I love to make friends with strangers I will never again see.</p><p></p><p>I see somebody in the angry line hailing me. At first I thought it was somebody so frustrated about the build up in traffic that they had begun to flail their arms in the air.</p><p></p><p>It was my son. He asks for meto wait for him. He returns to his place in the line. I follow him back and say, "please go to the doctor about your cysts. (I had just been to the Gastro-enterologist and one of the questions was about frequent boils.) Please, J. Please ask the doctor. And the only thing more I say is, you are thin.)</p><p></p><p>He asks me to buy wild caught tuna at Costco and he will reimburse me. I ask him to please lift the 10 pounds of flour into the car. He says he will only be here in my town here until the end of the month. He says, I recognize I will not thrive here. I am going back to the big city and I am going to try to get myself back into residential treatment. (I guess, as a means to try to get subsidized housing there.)</p><p></p><p>He says he will come to our house to phone the University to make an appointment with his hepatologist. OK.</p><p></p><p>So that was what had happened prior to seeing my cousin at Costco and feeling all of that shame and sadness. and making the speech.</p><p></p><p>It feels like the speech was something about sticking up for myself, defending myself, declaring who I am. But why?</p><p></p><p>Actually, I was not in the main upset to see my son. Except that he does look ravaged and that hurts and concerns me. I was grateful he was kind to me. He was not aggressive. He really does love me. I was glad that I did not feel viciously angry and needing to get him away from me. I love him so, so much.</p><p>You know, Cedar, this is how I feel with my cousin. I do not believe it has ever been her intention to hurt me but I have felt hurt nevertheless. She has never invited me to her home. She has never asked me to lunch. We have never sought each other out. My house is always in a state of process. That is always my excuse.</p><p></p><p>But I feel it is something else, too. To invite her and the rest of my paternal family to my home is to represent myself as somebody that has the confidence and the resources to offer hospitality and the self-assurance to come to this place. It is to accept myself as good enough. I have yet to do so, in the domestic realm. M very much misses that. He wants to open our home exactly as it is. He feels we are good enough. He is a confident, generous and very hospitable person.</p><p>Well, I do not know why. Why do I feel inferior to my cousin when I know that I am not?</p><p></p><p>All of you here know who proud I am of myself and my accomplishments. Why can I not assert myself as the equal of anybody? Why always at a disadvantage, when such disadvantage does not exist?</p><p>The same way I respond to my cousin as I do and as I did today. </p><p></p><p>Is it that I am always that child? Is that who I am still? That could not be.</p><p></p><p>Is there a functional use of remaining tethered to her? What?</p><p></p><p>My sister is very, very confident. In fact, she manifests the confidence of superiority. A superiority she has cultivated and has paid for with her integrity, I believe.</p><p>I think we know the whys Cedar. I think the task now is to try to identify the triggers. I do not believe that I am inferior to my cousin. I do not define myself in any way in relation to her. I do not need her or necessarily want her in my life.</p><p></p><p>But there was a time I did need her very much. Even in the 90's when I lived here. I was not considered by her or by my uncle and aunt to be their family. My son and I celebrated holidays alone. I needed family when I was a child, too. </p><p></p><p>Now I have M. M is my family with my son. I do not need her now. Why is the hurt still there?</p><p>Is this that ? What was the trigger? Do I feel that she needs it? Do I give it to her, because of that? Is it related to know that my sister is speaking to her?</p><p></p><p>What does that have to do with anything? I really feel now, my sister has her life and me, my own. I love my life now. I mean I may need to do work in my house, and sell all the junk I bought. I may need to become a confident hostess, and start walking and lose my weight. I need to make a budget and adhere to it. I want to work again.</p><p></p><p>We all know I need to be able to be stronger and not abandon myself with my son.</p><p></p><p>But I love my life. I love it. I love M. I love my son. I love my animals. I love you. And I am grateful.</p><p>I remember I bumped into this cousin's husband at the mailbox store. I was chatting with an acquaintance and he joined us. It was a nice talk. Whether it was this conversation with him or one before, I said this to the husband when we were alone: I remember Linda's father. I remember. It was terrible.</p><p></p><p>I had never said anything like that before or since. To anybody in my father's family. What I was really saying here is how horrible was my own father. They were all drunks. They were racist, mean drunks. That my cousin and I came out of this, is absolutely unbelievable.</p><p></p><p>I felt guilty that I said that. It was like I gave up a family secret.</p><p></p><p>Is that my shame? Is it my own shame, that she knows what I come from, and what I was degraded by? Is that her resistance to me? I do not think so.</p><p>And we are the ones that will stick up for what is right. We never gave up our values. The question is how on earth we got them. In those cesspools. I am remembering my grandparents here. Maybe I am their daughter.</p><p>Yes. Funny Cedar. To whit, earlier on in this post. I still seem to feel that my luncheon will not be good enough to invite my family.</p><p></p><p>Or what I am wondering now: If my concern is that my luncheon will be too good.</p><p>Except this is not true.</p><p></p><p>We have tried and tried to make it true. It requires us to contort so as to give the appearance we have stabbed ourselves in the back. And still, it does not convince the coroner.</p><p>Yes. This is the conundrum. Even when we figure it out Cedar, we forget we have. We keep forgetting to remember that we figured out. It is like Groundhog Day.</p><p>You know I am just remembering the most lovely interlude that happened immediately before I bumped into my cousin, and right after I had left my son.</p><p></p><p>I went to the returns desk at Costco. The youngish black man was not terribly friendly but quite handsome (I resisted this time telling him how handsome he was.) But I did say this: (His name was Tyresse.) I said your name is just beautiful. Do you love your name?</p><p></p><p>Yes he said, I adore my name.</p><p></p><p>You know something interesting, in Latin Languages the subjunctive tense can use a form with -esse at the end. The subjunctive tense does not exist in English. In latin languages it conveys hope, potential, doubt, emotion, uncertainty. It is the most beautiful of tenses. It is like Jazz. Everything that could be, might have been is conveyed by the subjunctive tense. And your name is that.</p><p></p><p>OK. I know you are rolling your eyes here. (I am slightly embarrassed to tell you. But this man was rapt. His eyes never left mine. He smiled throughout. I did too. It was such a lovely connection.</p><p></p><p>I never knew any of that, he said. Can you spell subjunctive, say it for me again please. Of course. </p><p></p><p>Then I added *are you cringing here. The best part, I almost did not remember:</p><p></p><p>Subjunctive comes from the same root as subject or subjectivity. Subjectivity gets a bad wrap, but before Capitalism subjectivity meant the dignity of the subject. It was turned into something that meant biased or emotional, because a new economic system needed its people to think about themselves differently, so that they would better fit the needs of the new economic system.</p><p></p><p>He said. Thank you. I love to learn. I never knew any of that. So I smiled and said, I would never have believed I would have the chance to think all of this and make this speech at the costco returns counter. Thank you very much. And we were a little bit in love the both of us. With life.</p><p></p><p>And you know, this was a young man--maybe 40 years old--who seems on the face of it, slightly inpatient, a little cocky and distracted. Reserved. He became transformed. I was so happy.</p><p></p><p>Is this my version of being a ringmaster with a whip, trying to tame people? I would hate to think it was that.</p><p></p><p>And it was not 10 minutes later that I met my cousin. Now if my sister or my cousin had been within 500 miles and I had known about it, there is no way I would have risked what I did.</p><p></p><p>I was mildly surprised that my son did not cringe and run when he saw me engaged in line stopping, animated conversation with the checker. But when I thought about it, I thought to myself, my son loves me. He is learning to love me as I am. He loves that I love people. I think he is grown up to be glad that I am alive and who I am.</p><p></p><p>So as I left the returns desk and walked towards the back of costco, I thought, I really would love to teach. I really do have a unique voice. I have been practicing using it here on CD and I like how I think. I do not think I could have, would have given my speech, even 6 months ago.</p><p>Cedar, for the sisters, we have to be the way I felt with my cousin. Ashamed. Alone. Without power. Without legitimate voice.</p><p></p><p>I must have felt that way, because I thought that she needed it, wanted it. How very sad. I feel sad now. That it is so automatic and deeply-ingrained.</p><p>So, Cedar, is this the crime and punishment? The wish to kill them and the awareness of that on some level. So that we kill ourselves with a blade in the back, as punishment. And our confusion about who done it, is because we do not take responsibility because there was not volition to do it. It feels necessary. We as if do it on orders, like somebody who has been unknowingly hypnotized and commits crimes at the behest, of their controller, unconsciously.</p><p></p><p>Is it as if we have been programmed, Cedar, and we are still obeying unconscious commands, that we never knew and believed. Or deserved.</p><p>I forgot to what you refer here, but it is a beautiful passage. I am a cold, depraved and blackened thing. With a knife in my back. I am dead by my own hand on command. I deny my culpability because i am not responsible. I have acted upon orders that I did not know nor could I understand.</p><p></p><p>Where is the place to break this chain? If we do not know the triggers. How do we regain control, volition and self-command.</p><p>But we are victims too of stabbing ourselves in the back on command. This has to be walked back.</p><p>This is intriguing Cedar. Because this is true. I have never spoken to or seen my sister since my mother died.</p><p>My sister, no.</p><p>Shame.</p><p></p><p>COPA</p><p></p><p>Excellent post, Cedar.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Copabanana, post: 679519, member: 18958"] You kn ow at Costco today, I bumped into my cousin. She is several years older than I am. She was my accountant for 10 years, and now retired. She is my paternal aunt's youngest child. She did not recognize me right away, but I did her. Except she had lost some weight and looked older. I was warm and open. She seemed glad to see me. More relaxed than usual. Usually she is reserved, a little tense and cool. I am somewhat afraid of her. She keeps her cards in her vest. As you know about me, I show all my my own. The talk went well. She told me about her travels, to Brasil and Peru, and her upcoming trip to. Europe. It was time to part. "I have a mission she said. Oh. Great to see you. After parting I felt somewhat vulnerable and ashamed. Like I always do with her. Mildly rejected. That I always show too much. She had seemed glad to see me. But I felt she was polite. That I am still little Debbie *not my real name, with nobody and nowhere to go. Flooded with these feelings, I ran to follow her, for some inexplicable reason and I said this: You know I come to live here in xxx by accident. I have not really chosen it because I wanted to be here. But I find there is something I really love about it here. People are warm and friendly to me. They talk to me. And I talk to them. I am so happy about that. That would not happen in Big City. Yeah, she said. If they talk to you they want something. We said goodbye for real, and I finished shopping. For the life of me, I do not know what I was saying by that speech and why I needed so to say it. Was it the shame and sadness that flooded me after meeting her? Was it to speak up for myself? (Because this woman as a girl knew me as a child. Nobody in my life now has known me that long. She knew me as a child that came to her home and her town. And really had nobody. Is the shame and sadness and mild rejection coming from so many years ago, or not? Strangely in the store where I had gone right before, as I was checking out, and engaging in animated conversation with the checker *about a certain liquor, which I am wont to do. I love to chat. I love to make friends with strangers I will never again see. I see somebody in the angry line hailing me. At first I thought it was somebody so frustrated about the build up in traffic that they had begun to flail their arms in the air. It was my son. He asks for meto wait for him. He returns to his place in the line. I follow him back and say, "please go to the doctor about your cysts. (I had just been to the Gastro-enterologist and one of the questions was about frequent boils.) Please, J. Please ask the doctor. And the only thing more I say is, you are thin.) He asks me to buy wild caught tuna at Costco and he will reimburse me. I ask him to please lift the 10 pounds of flour into the car. He says he will only be here in my town here until the end of the month. He says, I recognize I will not thrive here. I am going back to the big city and I am going to try to get myself back into residential treatment. (I guess, as a means to try to get subsidized housing there.) He says he will come to our house to phone the University to make an appointment with his hepatologist. OK. So that was what had happened prior to seeing my cousin at Costco and feeling all of that shame and sadness. and making the speech. It feels like the speech was something about sticking up for myself, defending myself, declaring who I am. But why? Actually, I was not in the main upset to see my son. Except that he does look ravaged and that hurts and concerns me. I was grateful he was kind to me. He was not aggressive. He really does love me. I was glad that I did not feel viciously angry and needing to get him away from me. I love him so, so much. You know, Cedar, this is how I feel with my cousin. I do not believe it has ever been her intention to hurt me but I have felt hurt nevertheless. She has never invited me to her home. She has never asked me to lunch. We have never sought each other out. My house is always in a state of process. That is always my excuse. But I feel it is something else, too. To invite her and the rest of my paternal family to my home is to represent myself as somebody that has the confidence and the resources to offer hospitality and the self-assurance to come to this place. It is to accept myself as good enough. I have yet to do so, in the domestic realm. M very much misses that. He wants to open our home exactly as it is. He feels we are good enough. He is a confident, generous and very hospitable person. Well, I do not know why. Why do I feel inferior to my cousin when I know that I am not? All of you here know who proud I am of myself and my accomplishments. Why can I not assert myself as the equal of anybody? Why always at a disadvantage, when such disadvantage does not exist? The same way I respond to my cousin as I do and as I did today. Is it that I am always that child? Is that who I am still? That could not be. Is there a functional use of remaining tethered to her? What? My sister is very, very confident. In fact, she manifests the confidence of superiority. A superiority she has cultivated and has paid for with her integrity, I believe. I think we know the whys Cedar. I think the task now is to try to identify the triggers. I do not believe that I am inferior to my cousin. I do not define myself in any way in relation to her. I do not need her or necessarily want her in my life. But there was a time I did need her very much. Even in the 90's when I lived here. I was not considered by her or by my uncle and aunt to be their family. My son and I celebrated holidays alone. I needed family when I was a child, too. Now I have M. M is my family with my son. I do not need her now. Why is the hurt still there? Is this that ? What was the trigger? Do I feel that she needs it? Do I give it to her, because of that? Is it related to know that my sister is speaking to her? What does that have to do with anything? I really feel now, my sister has her life and me, my own. I love my life now. I mean I may need to do work in my house, and sell all the junk I bought. I may need to become a confident hostess, and start walking and lose my weight. I need to make a budget and adhere to it. I want to work again. We all know I need to be able to be stronger and not abandon myself with my son. But I love my life. I love it. I love M. I love my son. I love my animals. I love you. And I am grateful. I remember I bumped into this cousin's husband at the mailbox store. I was chatting with an acquaintance and he joined us. It was a nice talk. Whether it was this conversation with him or one before, I said this to the husband when we were alone: I remember Linda's father. I remember. It was terrible. I had never said anything like that before or since. To anybody in my father's family. What I was really saying here is how horrible was my own father. They were all drunks. They were racist, mean drunks. That my cousin and I came out of this, is absolutely unbelievable. I felt guilty that I said that. It was like I gave up a family secret. Is that my shame? Is it my own shame, that she knows what I come from, and what I was degraded by? Is that her resistance to me? I do not think so. And we are the ones that will stick up for what is right. We never gave up our values. The question is how on earth we got them. In those cesspools. I am remembering my grandparents here. Maybe I am their daughter. Yes. Funny Cedar. To whit, earlier on in this post. I still seem to feel that my luncheon will not be good enough to invite my family. Or what I am wondering now: If my concern is that my luncheon will be too good. Except this is not true. We have tried and tried to make it true. It requires us to contort so as to give the appearance we have stabbed ourselves in the back. And still, it does not convince the coroner. Yes. This is the conundrum. Even when we figure it out Cedar, we forget we have. We keep forgetting to remember that we figured out. It is like Groundhog Day. You know I am just remembering the most lovely interlude that happened immediately before I bumped into my cousin, and right after I had left my son. I went to the returns desk at Costco. The youngish black man was not terribly friendly but quite handsome (I resisted this time telling him how handsome he was.) But I did say this: (His name was Tyresse.) I said your name is just beautiful. Do you love your name? Yes he said, I adore my name. You know something interesting, in Latin Languages the subjunctive tense can use a form with -esse at the end. The subjunctive tense does not exist in English. In latin languages it conveys hope, potential, doubt, emotion, uncertainty. It is the most beautiful of tenses. It is like Jazz. Everything that could be, might have been is conveyed by the subjunctive tense. And your name is that. OK. I know you are rolling your eyes here. (I am slightly embarrassed to tell you. But this man was rapt. His eyes never left mine. He smiled throughout. I did too. It was such a lovely connection. I never knew any of that, he said. Can you spell subjunctive, say it for me again please. Of course. Then I added *are you cringing here. The best part, I almost did not remember: Subjunctive comes from the same root as subject or subjectivity. Subjectivity gets a bad wrap, but before Capitalism subjectivity meant the dignity of the subject. It was turned into something that meant biased or emotional, because a new economic system needed its people to think about themselves differently, so that they would better fit the needs of the new economic system. He said. Thank you. I love to learn. I never knew any of that. So I smiled and said, I would never have believed I would have the chance to think all of this and make this speech at the costco returns counter. Thank you very much. And we were a little bit in love the both of us. With life. And you know, this was a young man--maybe 40 years old--who seems on the face of it, slightly inpatient, a little cocky and distracted. Reserved. He became transformed. I was so happy. Is this my version of being a ringmaster with a whip, trying to tame people? I would hate to think it was that. And it was not 10 minutes later that I met my cousin. Now if my sister or my cousin had been within 500 miles and I had known about it, there is no way I would have risked what I did. I was mildly surprised that my son did not cringe and run when he saw me engaged in line stopping, animated conversation with the checker. But when I thought about it, I thought to myself, my son loves me. He is learning to love me as I am. He loves that I love people. I think he is grown up to be glad that I am alive and who I am. So as I left the returns desk and walked towards the back of costco, I thought, I really would love to teach. I really do have a unique voice. I have been practicing using it here on CD and I like how I think. I do not think I could have, would have given my speech, even 6 months ago. Cedar, for the sisters, we have to be the way I felt with my cousin. Ashamed. Alone. Without power. Without legitimate voice. I must have felt that way, because I thought that she needed it, wanted it. How very sad. I feel sad now. That it is so automatic and deeply-ingrained. So, Cedar, is this the crime and punishment? The wish to kill them and the awareness of that on some level. So that we kill ourselves with a blade in the back, as punishment. And our confusion about who done it, is because we do not take responsibility because there was not volition to do it. It feels necessary. We as if do it on orders, like somebody who has been unknowingly hypnotized and commits crimes at the behest, of their controller, unconsciously. Is it as if we have been programmed, Cedar, and we are still obeying unconscious commands, that we never knew and believed. Or deserved. I forgot to what you refer here, but it is a beautiful passage. I am a cold, depraved and blackened thing. With a knife in my back. I am dead by my own hand on command. I deny my culpability because i am not responsible. I have acted upon orders that I did not know nor could I understand. Where is the place to break this chain? If we do not know the triggers. How do we regain control, volition and self-command. But we are victims too of stabbing ourselves in the back on command. This has to be walked back. This is intriguing Cedar. Because this is true. I have never spoken to or seen my sister since my mother died. My sister, no. Shame. COPA Excellent post, Cedar. [/QUOTE]
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