Notes to Mike

Dear Mike, I'm so adrift of late.  I feel lonely and alone.   Betty

Dear Mike, Between you and me, I needed you.  I was drowning. But now I'm not. It's in the past. Houston.  We have separation. I'm sorry that I reached out to you so much.  I'm sorry that I needed you so desperately.  I'm sorry that I was helpless.   I called my mom on Mother's Day. I got in three sentences.   She said she'd call me back and she didn't. I don't trust her anymore. That's that. The weather is overcast.  The heat is not utterly miserable so I won't be feeling sorry for you yet.  But actually I don't know why I should because obviously you are a glutton for punishment otherwise you would have chosen a different profession. So as my life is moving on I have Chris in Florida.  He's been off the radar.  I think he went on a weekend binge with his brother.  I guess it's all good. He has MS.  So life has to really suck.   My cat still loves me.  Because I'm lovable. I told Shawn, my bus driver, ...

Dear Mike, There is a chapter in my life and that page is turned. I am a different person. Less grateful. Perhaps less feeling like I'm drowning.  Less reaching towards the heavens to all that is unknown to save me. Whoever I'm transforming into it is a wonder to me each day. Betty

Dear Mike, It's 11a.m. and the cold and bitter rain has not relented since midnight.   I am putting together my list of daily habits. And I've decided to start working on a book.  I'm super excited about this project.  Wish me luck! It will on the subject of homeschooling and will follow the Usbourne Encyclopedia of World History which represents history in a chronological perspective. It's Mother's Day Mike and I'm so incredibly ambivalent.  It's painful to go back there with all the trust of a child.  All the need to be loved.  All the expectations of belonging.   Let that all fall into the shadows and into the darkness, that utter vulnerability that would have believed anything, yet was given nothing to cling onto.  That void.  The emptiness.  That promise unfulfilled.  And at the heart of it, that betrayal.   That was you.  That was me. You said that you let it go. Mine is spectre that looms over me ...

Dear Mike, I've shut my door to many relationships in the past few days.  It's a process of determining what is good for you and what is detrimental to you. It still leaves your life a lonelier place.  Sometimes it leaves me in a place of profound sadness. I talked to Dontrell Bonner yesterday.  He's a student at Thurgood Marshall High School.   "I'm not a teacher, you know.  I have a degree in business.  I'm not an expert in crowd control.  But you guys would have had different teachers coming in and out of your lives because the school fired the art teacher last year.  I didn't want that for you guys.  I wanted you to learn something, just by working at it, for an entire semester.  If you had bought into what I was trying to accomplish Dontrell you would have improved.  It's in the struggle.  If you can tolerate the discomfort of going somewhere that is uncomfortable then you can get better a little each day....

Dear Mike, I'm writing a thing about binary thinking and how it derives from fear.   The teacher across the hall was having a get together with a student's mom and she wanted me to write a letter about his behavior in class. I'm not sure how to reach a child Mike.  I'm not sure the ways that you are successful at getting children to make different choices.   Considering "does not exercise self restraint in communications" maybe that's just the kettle calling the pot black. I miss you Mike. I am endeavoring to line up people to interview.   It's been rainy and overcast the last two days.  I've been riding my scooter to work.   It's a little fun.   I turned Ralph down in the relationship arena.  Quick and painless.  That's how we all should take our shots.   I'm trying to incorporate an exercise routine into my day.  After work it's the exercise bicycle.  In the mo...

Dear Mike, I wish you could make more YouTube videos.  I know that you have more important priorities but as you already know that I think you are so talented and have such immense insight in your field. It's another Monday and I spent the entire all of yesterday just indulging my intellect in the field of economics and psychology.   I might as well be a jellyfish considering the amount of things I didn't get done. Maybe some days are meant for just lounging around?   I hope you had a more productive day. I don't know that any relationship in my life is satisfying right now so I reside within the realms of my intellect. Maybe it's just as well. I don't know. I don't know how I ever became so pathetic as to not have a friendship in my life.  I don't know why I was the way I was with you.   I'm good at giving people space.   Why wasn't I like that with you Mike? It baffles me? Maybe it stemmed from a lack of self confidence so that...

Dear Mike, I think I shall be back at writing articles.  Some areas of interest has arisen that I want to contend with. I was thinking of my kids and all the ways that I have contributed to my condition of estrangement from them.  I am the person that is contentious with their grandfather.  I am the person that demonstrated by my example that their grandfather can be casted off like a used napkin.   It's strange the things that children learn.

Dear Mike, The weather is 62 degrees.  Perfection is probably 72 degrees.  I cooked some ribs. I think I over salted it.   The ice maker is on the fritz.   My mind keeps churning the idea of binary thinking, black or white, right or wrong.  The brain does tend toward simplifying and simplicity.  We struggle with areas of gray when simplicity dictates that truth is in the white or black.  Pick a side any side.  Once you've decided then your subconscious gives you five reasons why you were right.   Even my mind Mike!  I was so quick with Stan to see the injustice in what he was doing, to see the ways that he was manipulating me, the ways that he was a predator.  I found him a  threat.  Maybe if I was on the Buddhist path I would have lingered in gray areas.  I could have helped him realize what he was doing was wrong instead of labeling him, then distancing him, and finally denegrating him....