Don't Tell

Shhhhhh.
You can’t see me. I’m hiding.
Okay, I’m not doing so well at it. Sigh.

It’s been an emotional week.

I realized half way through last week that this was the first year that the anniversary of my father’s death slipped by me and I didn’t even notice. He died in 1989.

On Tuesday, I had to deal with a big disappointment. One of the guys who has been in the program for over a year now really screwed up and was arrested. I have poured a lot of time and energy into this guy. We were at the PO”s office at the same time and he deferred to me, allowing me to go ahead of him. The next morning I found out that he was hit with a probation violation and immediately taken to jail. He was on judicial release, so he will have to finish out his original sentence—about seven years—and then he will face time for whatever charges they will levy against him for new crimes.

I really believed in this guy. I knew when he was blowing smoke, but I never, NEVER, imagined the stuff he was in to. He lied to me about things and left details out of other things. I just wanted to smack him upside the head for being so stupid—but then I wasn’t sure that all my anger was at him. I felt so dumb for trusting and believing—and I don’t want to feel that way.

I thought a lot about that this week, especially as I dealt with the rest of the folk in the program. Who could I believe? Who was lying to me? Will I ever know if they’re telling the truth? What I decided is I trust very easily. I am able to be shrewd and discerning at times—but I tend to err on the side of believing in that there is goodness in people. I want to be that way and it makes me very sad to think about not being that way.

Then there was the job interview. There is so much going on with this and so much not. I’ve talked to some people who know what’s going on and they are of the opinion that if Dan was smart he’d figure out a way to get me insurance because he doesn’t want to and won’t be able to train someone else to do the packaging component of the job as well as I do. There words were encouraging.

This past weekend my mom was here. She and George arrived on Friday about the time I got off work. We played scrabble non-stop all weekend and on Monday too, since I took the day off. It was so good to be with her and George was actually quite well-behaved. That was a major relief.

At one point Mom and I were looking at old family pictures that I had gotten when my grandmother, Mom’s mom, died in 1999. While we were strolling down Memory Lane, Mom looked at an old picture of Grandma and she started to cry. It nearly broke my heart and it made me think about how awful it will be when she’s gone. But hopefully we’ll have lots more Scrabble marathons before we have to think about that.

Tonight Nelson and I had dinner at Ponderosa. I was pleased with how controlled I was with my eating. That felt good. Afterwards we went to check out the Grand Re-opening of our local Goodwill Store. It was a good night to go. Sweaters were on special at $1 a piece. So I picked out 4! I also got a pair of dress navy pants and a pair shorts to wear working out at Curves. For all that I paid $7.27. I was quite pleased. The really cool thing: I shopped the regular racks. There was soooooooo much more to choose from. I felt like a kid in a candy store.

I did talk with Dan this morning about the job. They’ve interviewed the other guy and today there was a board meeting at which they would decide when they would meet with us. Hopefully that will happen within the next week. In the meantime, I’ll try to come out of hiding. I’m pretty sure I can trust you.