The snarling pitbulls of asdf [reposted for erminia]
el coyote viejo
> On Mon, 10 Feb 2003 22:54:18 -0500, phil...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
>
>>On Tue, 11 Feb 2003 03:55:34 GMT, erminia <ermi...@earthlink.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>><sigh>
>>>
>>>no, Philippa, I've got it right.
>>>
>>><oh, geez>
>
>
> You know, Claudia is right about my intent, but she saw it from the
> wrong angle.
>
> I do feel threatened by erminia and her party-dress analogy. When I
> was in junior high, it was a pretty little girl with a closet full of
> pretty dresses who made my life a living hell. She harassed me
> verbally, making up the taunts and cruel nicknames that haunted me on
> into high school. One day in the hall, she walked up to me, tore four
> strips of skin off the back of my hand with her pretty fingernails,
> and told me I was too ugly to live.
>
> My mother was a "girly" woman too, and she told me the same thing, in
> different and less violent but no less damaging ways.
>
> None of which has fuck-all to do with erminia, really. But when she
> accused me of wanting to be one of those girls, it cut, and it cut
> deeply, and I guess I haven't yet let it go.
>
> It took me 20 years to accept the truth that I would always be too
> tall, always have feet and hands too big to be considered feminine,
> never be pretty no matter how many clothes or shoes I bought, or how
> much makeup or jewelry I wore. It took me longer than that to reach
> the point where I can live with my looks, and accept that my husband
> finds me beautiful even though I'm no conventional beauty by the
> farthest stretch of the imagination.
>
> I don't intend to take 20 years to let this go.
I'm sorry phillipa.
--
-=ecv=-
erminia
phil...@mindspring.com at phil...@mindspring.com wrote on 2/10/03 11:24
PM:
yeah, i read this, Miss Philippa.
maybe you should read mine.
hey! and did you have a nasty stubborn case of ezcema all up and down both
yur forearems and around both your ankles all year 'round every year of your
life from age two (or was it three?) up to about age eighteen? I still have
the scars they left. really impresses the docs.
and did your mother still haul you in to the immunization office to try to
get them to give you the smallpox vaccine ANYWAY, every single year until
they stopped vaccinating people? even though every fucking year they all
but said to her "it will kill your daughter if we vaccinate her for
smallpox" as it had been well-known would happen for, oh, a few decades by
then.
don't try to get into a competition with me about who had the worse
childhood. i can trump you every motherfucking time.
it is what we do with ourselves AFTER our parents/guardians are through with
us that matters.
and i've done a damned good job with myself.
Erminia
(who really likes the sounds of her guardian angels applauding.)
Tracy Barber
wrote:
< healthy snip >
>it is what we do with ourselves AFTER our parents/guardians are through with
>us that matters.
This is what I was mentioning to some nephews and nieces at a wedding
for yet another nephew. Growing up for them wasn't so nice at times.
Very few people around them to make it "glow".
"Whatever happened in the past, well, it's the past. You can choose
to be miserable, mean and resentful if you want to. You're all old
enough to move on and make something of yourselves. That was then,
this is now."
Some of them have moved on, into a new life and are making something
of themselves. This is good to see!
My mom got more abuse than us kids. We had to rough it out and fend
for ourselves at times, but it could've been a lot worse.
I look at it real simply - When I'm dwelling on my past, I'm pissing
on my present and crapping on my future.
Tracy Barber