This story took place in October. I’m feeling much happier these days. Also, this story is embarrassing to me. I took some liberty with it so that it wouldn’t be embarrassing for anyone else. As with all my stories, this one is all about me.
I felt so angry as I threw the water bottles with full force into the mostly full garbage can. One after the other. Again and again.
“Why are you throwing those water bottles away?” a woman named Lynda asked.
It was so out of character for me. There had to be some reason for this mystifying behavior.
I couldn’t say how angry, hurt, and betrayed I felt. I knew that I was blowing the whole incident out of proportion and that the deep well of black darkness that engulfed me had little to do with the little, old lady at my friend’s church who told me to take my cheese home.
I was in such a dark place. I had cried nearly every day for two weeks. I had had rifts with three dear friends all in the span of one week and it had shattered my self-confidence and turned on that voice in my head that says, “You are unlovable. You are not good enough. If only you were better.”
One friend confided in me that she has lost her faith and accused me of being judgmental and making God a bigger priority in my life than anything else. I had let her down and she blamed me for being too Christian. A second friend called me out for not being Christian enough. She said that the church I belong to, my prayers and worship were hateful to God. A third dear one confronted me about an act of betrayal in which case I had neglected to consider her feelings. I tend to define myself by my faith, but I also know that I’m often inconsiderate and thoughtless. I truly do feel bad when I hurt someone by being oblivious to how they might feel because of my words, actions, or inactions, but it’s even worse to think that any lack of love on my part could bear such a bad witness to Christianity.
I’ve since made things right with my three friends, but all those breaks with people I care about coming one after another shook me up. When you think of me this week, please say a prayer for my first friend. It will take a while to mend the hurt there. She said that my prayers are useless and no replacement for the help she needed from me that I didn’t give. I pray that there will be an opportunity for me to show love in a tangible way somehow going forward because I still care deeply for her. I pray, “Lord have mercy,” because God knows what is needed, and I believe with my whole heart that He does love us.
I asked my second friend to stop criticizing my beliefs. At first, she was defensive, but we’ve been closer than ever since then. It made me feel less alone to think of her response when I too went on the defensive on the day of the water bottle incident when the little old lady confronted me.
The ladies’ board game club meets a couple of times a month in a church basement and has recently resumed after a hiatus during the pandemic. I went last time and brought a Costco tray of sliced cheese to go with some crackers and sliced summer sausages. Since I planned on coming back again soon, I left the cheese in the church refrigerator.
I had fun playing “Blank Slate” with the ladies, but I wasn’t up for the chit-chat afterwards. Someone asked me about our mutual friend, my friend who has lost her faith. I navigated that conversation with a smile and vague answers, but it awoke all the hurt in my heart. By the time most of the snacks were gone, I was more than ready to go home. I walked over to the table that had been laden with donuts, fruit, and my cheese and crackers.
The lady who has the miserable job of cleaning out the refrigerator noticed that I had left a package of cheese in the refrigerator. She’s one of those institutional ladies who seem to never leave. I’m still getting to know the women in this group, but even though I know nothing about her more than her name, this little old lady has always intimidated me.
As I was cleaning up the snacks I had brought for our group, she marched up to me and demanded, “Is this your cheese?”
On any other day, I could have answered her with gentleness and sweetness.
Instead, I felt hackles raise on the back of my neck, and claws replaced my fingernails as I answered, “Yes, it is.”
“You can’t leave food here.”
The attempts to defend my harmless and good intentions were met with a frown and her explanations of the gross things people have left in the refrigerator and the mold that has grown. I know it’s a thing. The teacher’s refrigerator at school is a mess at the end of each semester and my friend who takes it upon herself to clean it out every so often is a saint about it.
The lady asked nothing unreasonable of me, but all I heard was the miserable monologue in my head.
“She thinks the worst of me. I am unlovable. I am not good enough. If only I were better.”
I said, “Yes, Ma’am,” in the most snarky, bitter teenager voice I could muster.
Then I threw all the food I had brought for our group into the garbage including the cheese and strode over to the sink to wash off the tongs used for my platter. Then I saw the ten or so water bottles I had also brought. I couldn’t bear to leave them, nor did I want to bring them back to the car. Nothing more could stop my escape from that place.
Anger welled up in me at the obstacles to my hasty departure and my heart thrilled as I grabbed the first bottle and threw it as hard as I could into the now mostly full garbage bin.
Wham!
Wham!
Wham!
“Why are you throwing those water bottles away?” Lynda asked.
“Apparently, I’m not allowed to store anything here.” I spat out.
Of course, that wasn’t what the little old lady had said. I was overreacting. Lynda followed me as I marched over to grab my purse from beneath a chair.
“I think you need a hug,” she said and hugged me.
I was touched by her kindness but utterly humiliated by my actions, so embarrassed that I had thrown a huge temper tantrum in public. It was so unlike me. I marched out of the building. I cried in the restaurant drive-through on the way to bring a meal to a friend. I cried on the drive home. I cry whenever I think of it. Whenever I remember the look of confusion on the little, old lady’s face.
Man do I miss my mom. I miss her unconditional love. The feeling that there was nothing I could do to screw up in a way that would make her not love me. I sometimes thought she was blind or unreasonable in the way that she loved people, but I wish she was still here. I wish that I were more like her.
I am a well-loved person. I have so many friends and family who love me the way I am and are willing to look for the best in me. It’s me not them that is the cause of my insecurity, the source of that hateful monologue. “They love me, but they would like me better if I were kinder, prettier, thinner, more loving, less judgmental. I’m unlovable. I’m not good enough. If only I were a better wife, mother, sister, teacher, friend.” What’s even worse is how stuck I feel when I’m in the place of darkness. I don’t have a shot at being the loving person I want to be when all I can think about is what a mess I am. I need to be looking outward and forward, not inside, not towards that hurting child alone in the dark.
When I was feeling so miserable every unkind word was magnified, but so was every act of kindness. I lent my minivan to a friend who returned it cleaned out and full of gas. It was common courtesy, but feeling as unworthy as I did, it meant a lot to me. One morning as I was walking from one building to the next with my head down, the headmaster passed me going the opposite direction, and asked me if I had seen the butterflies. He claimed he had seen at least six of them. As I moved through the covered walk he had just come from, I forced myself to raise my eyes for the first time in days and saw flowers and butterflies and a beautiful world filled with leaf-filled trees on the cusp of turning into autumn glory. Those acts of kindness took me out of myself enough to realize that I must fight against the melancholy.
I went for a walk with my friend Stephanie. I ate beef for several nights in a row even though it gives me night sweats because the iron and b-vitamins help me to feel better. I stopped watching television. I paused in my novel. I went to church for some extra services. In short, I did everything that has proved time and time again to bring me into a better state of mind.
Mom loved elephants. One of the stories she loved to tell about elephants was about how when an elephant was grieving, all the other elephants would gather around her and put their trunks across her back to comfort her with their solidarity.
On Thursday I threw my last monthly tea party before Advent. I hadn’t told any of the ladies about how troubled I felt but they gathered around me in the solidarity of the elephants. They told me they appreciated me and enjoyed me. That week many of my friends reached out to check on me, Veronica, Melissa, Arlyn, Christy, Anne. Friends near and far reminded me how much they care.
I told this story to my friend Naomi who grew up with me, and she said that I sounded just like my mom. She remembered Mom’s flights of fury better than I did. With that prompting, I can picture Mom with anger burning in her eyes. That made me feel better too.
By God’s grace and through the love of my friends and family, I am in a better place as I write about the water bottle incident. Just don’t talk to me about my cheese. God help me. Lord have mercy on me. Lord have mercy on my friends, and Lord have mercy on little old ladies.
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