Category Archives: Things

Declutter 2017: Letter from Julia

Emotions, People, Series, Things, , , , ,

When I was going though a box of correspondence from my mom’s house I came across a small, folded note in an unmarked envelope. Now, my mom kept pretty much every piece of correspondence she received, so it was not unusual that she kept this, but it was a surprise to me and made me very uncomfortable because 1) I didn’t know anything about it and 2) it put me in a very bad light.

It took me a while to figure out that the note was from Julia. I thought, at first, that there was someone I’d been unkind to named Pat Knight who I’d completely forgotten, then I realized it was from Julia.

Readers of this blog may recall that I briefly had a roommate from England shortly after I moved out of my mom’s house and it ended badly. She was beautiful, blond, British and outgoing. At the time I felt much inferior to her, appearance-wise. We’d go to a bar and guys would be lining up to meet her. There were times guys seemed to want to get to know me because they wanted to get closer to her. To put it bluntly, I was envious of her looks and ease with men.

I actually looked forward to her returning to the States ((She’d spent a few weeks with us during the summer, then returned to England to get a visa so she could stay longer)) as my roommate before she arrived; and I know we had some fun together. The part about me only allowing her to come back to the States because I owed it to my parents is not right — I may have said it, but that was easier to say than admit that I was jealous of her looks and accent and how guys acted around her. I also was not jealous of the relationship she was growing with my family ((well, I say that now, but perhaps I was. I know I was jealous that my mom talked to Marcia about things that she would not talk to me about)).

I know I was difficult to live with, but at the time I felt as if I were the injured party. I paid the rent and she didn’t always have the cash for her part of the rent. I paid for her medical bills when she went to the doctor because she had no insurance. I did the housekeeping and did our laundry. I definitely resented her for a lot of things and I am sure it showed.

There were other things that I won’t mention here, but both of us were on shaky ground based on societal rules (and U. S. and state laws) of the time.

The part about the letter is probably true. I don’t remember writing it, but I hated how I was acting, I hated the jealousy I was feeling. I’d long felt that there was something wrong with me because I had such a short fuse and would explode at the slightest provocation.

For years afterwards friends and family members would ask me if I’d ever heard from her or knew where she was living. I didn’t until I got in touch with her brother, and then got in touch with her in 2010. This year we became friends on Facebook.

And as I told Julia in an email nearly 8 years ago — she’s why Dean and I are together. Dean and I dated a few times in 1979, but I wanted to date someone else. A year later Dean, who  was a client of the salon where Julia worked, had her for a hair washer. When he heard her talk he asked if she knew me. She said yes and that he should call me. He did and the rest is history.

Declutter 2017: Needlepoint from Patsy

Memories, Things,

Teachers get a lot of interesting gifts from their students. I think the most interesting, and inappropriate gift I received was a long, pink nightgown from the child of a Filipino mother. She also gave me one of my best gifts — dinner out (with her) at a fancy restaurant in Arlington. I got a lot of mugs, most of which are broken or given away these 20 years since I last stepped foot in a classroom as a teacher. I already wrote about one of my favorite gifts, my cheeseburger pencil holder. A couple parents gave me things they made themselves and I have one or two of those left, including this needlepoint sampler.

The mother of one of the sweetest children I ever met made this and gave it to me in 1988. Her son, Michael, was probably in first grade at the time. He and his family moved from St. Angelo, Texas at the beginning of the school year because his father got a job at the Pentagon. He was a Marine, and scary as hell, but his wife and son were so sweet and kind.

Michael was in my class because he had a brain tumor when he was very young that caused him to have seizures, so many a day that he had to wear a helmet most of the time to protect his head for when he fell. The seizures mostly stopped when the tumor was removed, but he was still slightly delayed because of the brain trauma. He also had a brain stent to reduce fluids from building up around his brain.

A few years after the family moved to the DC area, the father developed a seizure disorder. I remember talking to Michael’s mom about how unfair it was that both her son and now her husband had seizure disorders and asked her how she stayed so positive and she told me that it is not that God gives you only what you can handle in life, but you learn to handle what God gives you ((this was a Catholic school, hence the God stuff)).

I last talked to Michael’s mom (and Michael) after I gave birth to my daughter. It was a brief conversation, but it was memorable in that both she and Michael were still very positive people. Michael will be in his thirties now. I hope he is still as cheerful as he was as a child.