Face Me: Father's Day Confrontation with Reality

When running low on patience and blood pressure medication, it is not a good idea to let another human being influence you to the point of confrontation, but there is something about ego and arrogance that drives us to do insane things in the name of sanity. I mean, who in their right mind would let someone speak to them in a disrespectful tone and not respond, right?

While I would love to write about the good old-fashioned cussing I gave to the ex-husband, why go there on this blog, right? I could just tell the truth and shame the devil... or myself.

I have been unemployed from full-time work for over a year. All the bills are late, I fear waking up one morning and the car is repossessed. I peak out of the window overtime I hear a neighbor drive up and get out of their car. The eviction notice came and even though I have a plan in place to get money, the plan involves my 47 year old body doing the work that my 20 something mindset

 thinks I can handle.

Off to the Temp Agency. I filled out the application. The next day I go back in. "Give me whatever you have that can put money in my hand quickly to get some bills paid." I find myself picking up heavy boxes from a conveyor belt in -20 degree temperatures at an ice cream factory, for $9.00 + an hour. 

I work with some decent men. Six Black men, one Latino man, and me. I suit up. I say little. They are nice and teamwork is real because I am short and sometimes I have to use my shot put throwing arm to sling the boxes up on the crates. I can't see the patterns the boxes go into when they are stacked that high, so the brothers help me. 

I share this because I can see the conversations about class swirl around me like buzzards circling a dead carcass. The ex-husband became nice all of sudden and bragged about paying the cable bill because I couldn't afford to pay it so our daughter could watch TV. If I were still working at the university, he would have NEVER done that. He misinterpreted our daughter's excitement for belittlement of me when she yelled through the phone, "Mommy works at the ice cream factory, she makes ice cream." What a cool thing for her to have talks with me about how ice cream gets to the store for her to go in to purchase it, right?

Well, the ex-husband chastised her for making fun of Mommy having to work at a factory instead of at the university. I chimed in and said, "Wait, wait, she is excited that I work there. what are you saying?"  It was then that I realized I was not imagining the tone in his voice. He was happy that I had --in his mind-- fallen down, failed.  He was gloating and happy that I am struggling. And he has not offered to help with one dime of rent to keep stability in our child's life  --- never mind the 5 to 7 times he "fell" and lived with us until he "got back on his feet".

So, he got what he did not expect. Money or no money, job or no job, I am still Jethro and Helen's child. The essence of who I am is not defined by poverty or wealth. I drove to his home and asked a simple question: "Do you want to say to my face what you said to me over the phone before you hung   up in my face?"  Folk started looking for the exit. He asked me to talk outside. Now all his neighbors know our business -- mostly his.

I choose peace and serenity, but don't disrespect me, because if you do, you disrespect my Ancestors and some of them will rise in me and handle situations on a level that I don't even understand most times. 

The lesson for me is to continue to face difficult situations and handle difficult people the best way I know how. The reality is that some people who have been close to you, hate you for wanting to be the best you can be. They see your set-backs as failures and they are happy for you to fail --even when the hard times that get visited upon you by default is visited upon their own flesh and blood.

Jolivette Anderson "The Poet Warrior"

(c) June 21, 2015