Cafe Hitch-hike

2023-10-26

This beautiful little while

I didn't have much to say to -- because... they were oppressive. I guess they saw me as a threat. Instead of us getting to know each other and find ways to go forward, they blackballed me. Some seemed nervous to talk to me until they left. I can finally have relationships and interactions with others. The ones that did talk to me were the ones that didn't seem to care about what this person thought.

I understood they did the same to others we worked with. This person had to leave because they burned so many damn bridges.

I'm not in touch with them since they've been gone but others still are. They say they are just as miserable as we've always known them.

Perhaps some people are just miserable in general, and were that way before we crossed paths. Maybe there wasn't much I could do with someone who was so insecure and who knows what else.

I kind of suspected -- looked down on me. (Ok, I'll say it cos I can here and yeah, I will go there) What's happening now just didn't happen where we were from. I was one of the people who picked the crops, cleaned the houses, watched the kids, and cooked in the restaurants. We didn't really belong in the midwest, we just came in when work needed to be done and left when it was finished. We weren't supposed to get an education, figure out ways to make it work, grasp every opportunity needed to get there, and improvise. God forbid that with time and experience we'd be seen as equals. Worse yet, someone like me leading things?

I sure hope it's an assumption, but I see the way they treat 2 Black colleagues and the way they verbally barb into them. I also see this persona they cop so when they do get aggressive, there's disbelief. I've been doing this long enough to know when that merde is fake.

Let them live in their own world and bubble, but if they attempt to prick mine, I will fire a warning shot. If they don't listen, I will step on them and not think twice. I've been more than generous with them over the years. They say they are Christian, so whatever happened to The Golden Rule?

I can't believe I've been heard and regarded. The things I've asked others to do turn out very well and also helps them, so it's not all about me. A slacker made some changes to a document that I asked them to do, and I was there when someone saw the document and was *very* happy with what they had seen and the changes I suggested.

If anything, I have to tell people to do things cos I get it from the Powers That Be above me and it simply needs to be done. Someone who was straggling with a routine task was given a warning shot: "if you can't get this done (after I asked them 3 times and with plenty of time to do it), let me know and I'll assign it to someone else." It wasn't me throwing my weight around. It needed to get done cos other things were attached to it (and not just my order).

I'm catching my breath. Some days I have a big cry in my house, and not because I'm cracking up. I guess it's the change in my interactions. I guess it's the change in having back-up. I guess it's a change from not having to be the lone voice, or having my thoughts or ideas be pushed aside.

I'm catching my breath so I can reclaim my voice. I'm crying to release the years of pent-up frustration and God knows what else. I'm crying to soothe the decisions I did and didn't make because I assumed things would always be a certain way. I cry because I look at all the shit I had to deal with, now I know why I'm anxious and took so many self-protective stances. Tommy Chong said it right when he described growing up bi-racial in Canada in that when you're the only kind of what you are in a given place, it means you fight a lot. I didn't fight the way he did, I internalized it, fought around it, or relied on my ability to take more blows than most people can. I can only wonder what ingesting that poison from others and myself did.

I've had to wrestle with so much fear, and much if it actually made sense.

Hey, if this is a beautiful little while, I'll embrace it and say 'thank you' for finally feeling a fuller sense of power, however long it may or may not last.

downwind | upstream