On Loving Ourselves Through Our Triggers

Just before I went to get dressed yesterday evening to attend a show my partner has been raving about, I got a message from the friend of a friend. Or former friend of a friend. An acquaintance.

I’ve come to see the message was sent to control me. To bully me into doing something I don’t want to do, over something that has nothing to do with me. It was emphatic, wholly inappropriate, and invasive. And it landed uninvited in my lap on an otherwise lovely Friday afternoon.

I tend to ruminate. I repeatedly turn things over in my mind, looking for how I could have handled something differently or better or… something.

It seems I assume responsibility when people I care about -even peripherally- are uncomfortable. Or angry. Or demanding. And especially, when they are unreasonable.

I was now late standing up to get dressed, late getting my partner to his JOB (by a few minutes, but still…) and I was never really present to the artistic work I’d gotten myself ready to go and see.

I was… unnerved. Disquieted. This human, who is mad at our mutual friend for reasons she refuses to disclose, showed her hand. And her ass - through what I’m sure she’d claim was a benign request. It was not.

This person moved from New Jersey to Florida MANY years ago, well before I ever met her. She has never liked Florida. Not the weather, not the beaches, not the people, and definitely not the politics in the conservative area where she chose to live near the gulf. She has been miserable for as long as I have known her, which is not nearly as long as she and our mutual friend have known one another. If I’ve known her 10 years, she goes back 40+ with our mutual.

Apparently, and unbeknownst to me (obviously, since we had yet to even meet) when she was cleaning out her Jersey house she gave our friend a plant stand. It’s one of those knockoffs from the Bombay Company, circa late 1980’s or early 1990’s, bought in a mall - dark stain with a green marble top and brasstic accents. Cheap when it was purchased, and rickety today.

Now, it never really had a place in my friend’s house. It had lived in a corner of her basement. When she asked if I wanted it I said, “Sure. I can do something with it.” And It came home to my city house, then my apartment over the bar, and eventually to our current home where it finally has a place of honor near the front door welcoming guests. This thing has been MINE for at least 8 years. On the bottom shelf is my treasured statue of Saint Francis. On the top is my partner’s beloved sculpture, a Pier One thrift store find he just loves. We call her, “Heddy” because it is a wooden sculpture of…a head.

At any rate, the first thing you see entering our living room are these two treasures on the little mall table I’ve described. My house is FULL of hand-me-downs, thrift store finds, and other peoples castoffs. I quite like the final effect, because I love everything around me - but ain’t none of it new or expensive.

I’ve been “making do” with everything in my life for a very, very long time. If I didn’t already have a title for my memoir (The Worst Gay Bar Ever) it might easily be, “Trash to Treasure.” I try to make things lovely, even if they aren’t. Whether furniture, relationships, the way I’m treated, or Knick-knacks. This house I live in is far from the grand manor I was certain I’d have by this point in my life. It’s a 1950’s Jawn my father built with his hands. Ten rooms and two baths on about 1/3 of an acre. It is serviceable and warm in the winter, and the place where I was raised, finally escaped, and pandemic-returned to, empty and with my parents both dead.

Creating a sense of peace and place here is an ongoing challenge, especially with little money and no disposable income at all. But it is now MY home, our home, and all who enter comment on the sense of serene peace here. I earned that shit. I made it lovely. And it is (for now anyway) MINE.

So, this friend-of-a-friend attended a summer barbecue we held last year to introduce friends and loved ones to our “new” home. A great time was had by all at the BBQ, loved ones met other loved ones, there was zero drama, and we felt quite satisfied with a lovely early July event.

That was the last time we saw her. That was the last time -we now note in hindsight- that she ever spoke to our mutual friend, who I should mention, I refer to always as my Sister. Not by blood, by choice. We NEVER put the BBQ and the not-speaking together until today. Everything was fine and good, and then this person began contacting ME again last year, but not my sister. She’d ask to go to dinner with my partner and I, excluding my sister. I’d suggest she contact my sister to see if she was available, too, and then conversation would drop entirely.

At one point in a message, she noted the little table by my front door as having once belonged to her mother, (?!) I snapped and sent a picture asking, “this?” She said, “yes, take good care of it,” and that was that. Or so I thought.

She messaged me late in August this year to say that she and her husband would be in New Jersey the first week in September. I never responded. We were booked solid that week, I’d already told her messaging me and not my sister makes me uncomfortable, and right after I read it, I forgot all about it. I was truly busy, this is an acquaintance, and I’ve already said I don’t want to be in the middle, even though that message to her had been repeatedly ignored.

So last night, after showering and drying my hair, I decided to sit quietly for a moment with a glass of wine before putting on my makeup and getting dressed to go out.

In came a message from said acquaintance telling me that since I had ignored her previous message, I was to take HER table to FEDEX or UPS and ship it to the address she provided. (WTAF?)

Immediately I felt as if I had done something wrong. This much-older woman, whip-smart, sarcastic and often very funny, whom I knew only through my sister, was ordering me to correct… something? I *Think* she convinced herself she had been wronged, and It was my responsibility to make it right again.

I fired off a quick note reminding her she hadn’t given me anything, my sister had, and if she didn’t like where that item was now, she should talk with my SISTER, not me. I also said maybe she had time for this nonsense, but I don’t. I also asked her once again (forwarding my note to her from a year ago) WHY she wasn’t talking to my sister in the first place.

She wrote back telling me “nonsense” was an unkind word and she had just wanted her mother’s table back. Seems her mother shopped in the mall just before she kicked, I guess. But the provenance of this table hadn’t mattered a lick when she gave it away, and didn’t matter until the day she saw it in my living room. And it would seem she has stewed over that ever since.

I was disquieted, taken aback, and now I was gonna be late, and make my partner late. I rushed to get ready, mumbling to myself, and we drove to the theater where he works and I would be seeing the show.

I looked good, everything was pleasant, but I can’t say I was at all present for the performance, found myself critical of the work, and was generally disgruntled without realizing why. I just wanted to go home, and I was super relieved when I could not find parking near the bar where we were to join the cast afterwards.

As I drove toward home I rattled off a litany of the things rushing through my mind at my beleaguered partner who I know was disappointed the evening was ending too quickly. But I didn’t want to “people” anymore, I wanted sweatpants, a glass of Cabernet, and the solitude of just Us. I made pasta, and we ate, and tensions eased over that British Baking Show. I wasn’t mad at him at all. I didn’t know WHAT I was unnerved about. Ostensibly, I had dispensed with this woman’s silly demands hours before. Nope.

I did get decent sleep last night. I had relaxed enough to let it all go into the Universe. I have a little conversation with myself when my mind is racing at bedtime.

“Your ONLY job right now is restful sleep. You’ve done all you can for today, and whatever is bothering you will be there tomorrow, when you are fresh to deal with it. And there is no promise of tomorrow. Let your body sleep, release your worries, and rest now in the Lap of Mother Universe.”

This little self-dialog helps me (most of the time,) and it did last night.

This morning I recognized my trauma response from the night before. Saw it clear as day. This woman (who reminds me very much of my mother, Toots with her salt and snark) had triggered me. Hard. I’d let her unrest seep into my evening. I’d allowed her disquiet to disrupt my happiness. I’d made HER problem into my problem, and I wasn’t able to shake that feeling of somehow having done something very punishable and wrong. I felt SHAME over something that had literally nothing to do with me.

Shame wasn’t a healthy response here at all, but it was my response entirely. I forgave myself, stretched, and enjoyed my coffee and the lovely morning breeze coming through the windows.

I also wrote her the letter I’d actually want to receive myself if my behavior was completely off the rails. And I sent it. I sent it all back to where it originated.

And I feel far lighter today than I did last night. I offered this person some sound advice, compassion, and a HARD line on my boundaries moving forward.

And I already made arrangements to go back tonight to see the show I was not fully present for last night. I owe that to myself, my partner, and his new friends who wish to become my new friends as well. I will honor their work with my presence this evening. A do-over I am gifting myself and all of us.

We do not control what comes at us. And we have precious little control over how our wiring initially responds when triggered. But honoring the fact that shame has been triggered, and compassionately approaching what happened, how it affected us, and what WE can do about it, is healing. And healing ourselves makes room for the glorious present moment.

None of this is about a knockoff table. And none of it EVER was.

Peace, Lovelies

-MM

Addendum: I got one final message from this person, dead-naming me in all caps (how original) essentially saying we collectively stole her table. Then I blocked her. Protect your Peace, kids.

First and always. 💜✨

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