Good Deeds Gone Bad...

I am one of those people that fall short on going to church. Don't get me wrong. I believe in God, I read the bible and other books on spirituality and how to lead a good life. I am a true believer in taking the high road and always striving to be the good person taking the higher ground. Hubby is the same way. Though he is mean an surly, he will always be the one to 'act like and adult' in any situatuon. i firmly believe that if you do good then good things with come back to you. Hubby and I have talked with Stepson about this many times. He is setting himself up to be in a position where good things are going to come to him. He will also be in a position where he could possible use a lot of people who may want to just swing on his cot tails. In my best Vice Parent voice I have told him that he must do good for people so that good things will continue to happen to him. It's just Godly and the way I believe the Universe works.


Until recently...


My family has made me change my mind on a of things over the last few months. See there is somethings strandly odd about this group. My universal law does not work on them. They are not a bunch of folk that can accept good deeds. Go figure. These God Fearing, church going folk are the most mean spirited people I have ever met. And as of yesterday, I no longer have time for them.

My grandfather left some jewlery in his estate. Mind you this is not a grand estate, but the little things that he left were valuable. As I have said before I was told to liquidate everything and split the money betwee his children. He left a will which was good because if they are fighting like this now, i can only imagine what would have happened if there was no will. Anyway, the jewlery was not purchased inthe estate. Auntie Dearest hubsand wanted to buy it, but was unable to due to an emergency. When we were dividing the property at my grandfather's house, My olderest uncle, who is also my grandfather's cousin and has known him all his life, came by. He is very sentimental, and asked if he could have a pair of my grandfather's shoes. Don't know why, but that is all that he wanted. Uncle Junkie had previously asked for all the clothes in the closet and at the time he was not there. I was too afraid to give Oldest Uncle a pair of shoes. I have regretted that for the last four months.


This Father's Day I wanted to do something special. So I purchased the ring out of the estate to give to Olderst Uncle. Hubby wanted to make this a grand gesture and purchased a second ring out of the estate to give to Auntie Dearest husband since he wanted to buy the jewlery in the first place. This we thought was a good deed. Maybe is would lead to closure and some and healing in with this group.

I did not want to do this at all. And I really had to fight deep to send that ring to Auntie Dearest house. I knew that this gesture of kindness would be taken out of context and we all would be fighting again. I fought against Hubby because though I knew this was the right thing to do, I just could not bring myself to do it. Even at the post office I was struggling to sign my name to the card because I knew that this would be a bigger mess than anyone could imagine. But again, listening to what is right, I signed my name and sent the package off with good wishes.

Oldest Uncle cried when he got the ring. Aunitie Dearest's husband called and thanked Hubby and I profusely for the kind gesture. I started to feel bad that I had made such a fool out of myself by not wanting to send this ring.

And then...

I get a call from Other Aunt upset that I had tired to do a good thing. "Why would you do something like that...you know how they act" after asking her what she was talking about, I learned that Auntie Dearest was mailing the ring to Uncle Junkie because that is who she said it should have gone to in the first place. WHAT??? Then I called Mommie to see if she knew anything about this. Between giggles she told me that she had spoken to Auntie Dearest who mention that this was a great gesture and that her husband had been so happy but she was sending the ring to the Junkie. After HUbby made a few calls Hubby found out that AD's husband did not know of her trip to the post office.


GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!!

I can't believe that this good deed when this wrong. I aksed Mommie and Oldest Aunt what they said to AD and no one said ANYTHING. They accepted this stupidity and instead called me. I am completely hurt. I am tired of feeling like the one that everyone in this group dumps their emotions on when it comes to this woman. If you are upset and don't like what she did call her and complain and argue. I feel as if I am a joke with this group. A scapegoat to take everyones emotions out on. It seems to be greater to keep the relationship between the brothers and the sisters than to keep a relationship with any other member of the family. And here I am thinking that I was special and from a special family. These folk are special, just in a nuthouse kinda way. As of yesterday, I have no need to talk to my mom (let see how long that will last) or any of these people. I am seeing that doing your best for other people usually gets the worst done to you and I am going to have to think long and hard about my Universal philosophy.

Other Aunt keeps saying that I must not be my mother's child because I have not acted a raw as she would have by now. As of today, I am my mother's child. This is about to be fun.

The Long Ride Home

This weekend I went to visit a friend of mine in Athens, GA. Athens is only known for one thing and that is UGA. The University of Georgia takes up a lot of space in the small Georgia town, it also takes up a lot of space in the residents of the city. If ever there was a city proud of its college team...well, Athen is that town. The funny thing is that although Ms. Athens works for the school, she is not the die-hard Bulldog fan. Her husband, however, secrectly suits up and plays wide receiver for the team. They just don't know it.

Anyway, this weekend, during my long drive to and from Athens, I though a lot about where life takes us. Just like the long road there, our life is a long road with many twist, turns, and rest stops along the way. The whole jouney takes us to an unknown destination. Usually one that we were not expecting and only came across because of some detour we decided to take. For example, Ms. Athens is a former beauty queen and is able to be bougie with the best of us. She married this small town boy and though the mix seems combustable, the bottom line is that they are in love and have a great family.

This weekend she was the lead driver on my pilgramage to the Envy store. I have watched the show on Black Family Channel many times and promised my self that the next time I was in the ATL I would make sure to stop by the store. I had to keep from jumping up and down and screaming like a school girl when the women from the store were actually in the shop. Envy is in a popuplar bohemian part of Atlana called Five Points. After paying way too much for some shirts and shorts. Miss A and I decided that we would walk around a place that we had been to many times before, only in younger years. Going to an area that you frequented when you were younger after you have aged a bit is usually funny. In most of the stores we just looked at each other and sighed..."Why did we used to come here again?". It was fun, and it was a laugh, but we needed to get back next to some folk our own age.


As we drove around we had a chance to talk. It was weird because it was uninterrupted. There was no Hubby asking me questions, no baby crying, or Jazzi asking is she can have her 6000th snack of the day. It was nice to just talk. As women do we talked about relationships, life. love. the future and had some good laughs about the past. The next morning, I started my long ride home.

It's good to have time to spend with old friends. I loved my weekend. And if she will have me, I plan on doing it again soon. Maybe she can take the long ride to my house this time.


Thank You, Athens, for a lovely weekend.

Letting Go of My Demons

My last day with the demons was sad. The funny part is no one could have told me that letting them go would have been this hard. I did my best to make sure that our last days were fun. Sadly, though I tried we did not have too much fun this school year. There were always test and assesments and district policies to contend with. We watched movies (even though principal was not happy about that), ate cupcakes, drank a ton of punch and at the final hour, had Mrs. Green's world famous ice cream sodas. Yeah...I sent them home to their parents like they usually sent them to me this year...sugarded up and ready to run.


Usually only a few children come on the last couple days of school. Of course, DemonSlayer was the first face that I saw right up until the end. I can only assume that his mom did not want to start her vacation too early. He must have come for the free hot dogs and the chance to do his favorite thing in school without having anyone fuss....NOTHING. The JesusDemons were there and so was Ms. Brazil. We had a great time.

The best part of it all was truly unexpected. Around 11 o'clock on the very last day, Mr. Colorado and his mom came to the door. He had not come that morning and I was sure that, like most of the kids, he was just going to stay home and start vacation early. His mom told me that when he woke up he realized that he had not given me the card that he had spent all weekend working on. In the card he thanked me for being the best teacher he ever had (and the spelled it right). He also told me how he was going to miss me over the summer and was sad that I was not coming back to the school. He also said that he would remember that I was he favorite person. Go figure.


The sad thing is I will miss my demons. I can take pleasure knowing that I have sent them out into the cold hard second grade world prepared and ready to put up the good fight with their own demons. Maybe I have been the crazy one all along because I will truly miss each of them.


(OK well maybe not Shawshank, but you get the idea!)