Wheatland, MO

 

We were there to visit Diana, Isaiah's grandmother, and Isaiah wanted to be there during our visit.

Diana arranged for her neighbor, Roger, to host us. Roger has a storage facility about a block from Diana's house. It was the perfect location. There was plenty of grass for the horses, which they very much enjoyed.

We set up our portable corrals and the horses were quite content.

We had full hook-up on our trailer and we were able to spend most of our time in the trailer away from Diana, Isaiah, and Deeba, so they could visit without us being in the way.

But on our third day there, we had a falling out with Diana.

It was unfortunate, but she ordered us off the property and refused to hash out any differences.

Diana felt that I was over-judgmental of her and her family. Apparently, every word out of my mouth had been picked apart and over-analyzed to the point that anything I said sounded like a criticism. If I commented on the weather, it was critical.

We were accused of being liars and thieves.

We were sad, but there really was no point in arguing. Diana had built up 15 years worth of resentment against us, especially me. We had no idea she was so angry and had been holding onto that anger for so long.

Isaiah was angry with us as well. He believed I had been extremely disrespectful to Diana.

We felt like we had been lured there under false pretenses. We had expected to have a low-key visit, but Isaiah and Diana had planned this great drama where they would scream, "J'accuse!" and order us out of their lives.

We found a nice horse motel in Mount Vernon, MO and left.

Two days later, Isaiah is texting that "we didn't even try to talk to them to work things out, we just left."

That is what gaslighting looks like. 

It makes me wonder if people really do go around with a scorecard evaluating everyone they meet. Is this person more attractive than me? Are they happier? Do they have more stuff? That would be a pretty miserable way to live. I have always assumed that everyone is just doing the best they can with what they have to work with. There are always going to be people with more and people with less.  

Diana believed I was scoring her and her family on this imaginary scorecard and giving them a failing grade.  I have no idea why she thought that because, frankly, that's not the way I think. But, apparently, she does and on her score card I am in the bottom percent.

But, here's the rub...if you believe people are constantly scoring you, judging you and finding you less, then you are going to eventually have a really low opinion of yourself. Since I don't keep scorecards and don't waste my time scoring people, my self-esteem is just fine, thank you. 

It's sad, because I always admired Diana and thought so highly of her, but apparently the feeling was not even close to mutual.

We took in Isaiah when he was 9 years old. At 16, he kept stealing our cars and taking our stuff. He threatened to burn our house down if we didn't let him have his way.  At that point, we had three choices: 1) let him keep stealing our cars without any consequences even though he had no license or insurance 2) file a complaint with the sheriff and have him hauled off to jail 3) kick him out 

We explained to Isaiah that those were our three options and we were going with #3 unless he stopped his behavior. He was warned. But, he has no impulse control. He doesn't think past the next five minutes. So, of course, he stole our car again.

We kicked him out and he went to live with our son, Daniel. At 18, he moved back in with us saying he had learned his lesson. At 24, we told him we were going on this trip and he needed to move out. He wasn't happy about it, but he did move out. We gave him the deposit money so he could get his first apartment. 

So, we supported this kid for almost 15 years. Braces, piano lessons, summer camps, and private tutors. We paid for his tuition and books when he attended community college. He had a very nice life with us. We didn't expect him to necessarily be grateful or take care of us in our old age. However, we also didn't expect to be called liars and thieves when he had been the one who lied and stolen from us. We didn't expect to be sent packing like we were criminals.

We are still processing the entire event because it just seems surreal.  We are hoping to put the entire ordeal in the rear view window and get on with our lives.