2 a: no longer possessed b: no longer known
I have lost K's acceptance letter for starting kindergarten next year. Upon the letter's arrival, it was passed around the family. A wanted to read it for herself, B wanted to read it to K, K wanted to spell her name out loud, reading it from the letter. A & B are excited to have K at their school next year and K is very excited about being a "school-ager." Last week, she put on one of B's collared school shirts and wore it all day because she's so excited to join the ranks of schoolchildren. I don't want to have to explain to her that she can't start school because mommy is incompetent and lost her acceptance letter.
I realized it was gone this morning when I mentioned to J that we needed to turn it in on Friday and he asked where it was. J & I both remember seeing the letter on the dining room table. When it disappeared from there, I assumed he had put it away. Unfortunately, he assumed I had put it away. So no one knows where it now is. The recycling has gone out to the curb, but has not been picked up yet. I'm not overly excited about digging through a huge recycling barrel to find a piece of paper, but I'm not excited about Kate staying home for another year before starting kindergarten either!
When I realized the letter was truly nowhere to be found, I called J at work to tell him. He offered several suggestions for places to look, things to try, etc. and then said, "Maybe K's just not supposed to start kindergarten next year." That was not the right thing to say to me since I was already overly emotional about my inability to keep track of one very important piece of paper. I started crying, so we pretty quickly wrapped up the phone call and I worked to get myself back under control.
Shortly thereafter, the principal at A & B's school kindly returned my panicked e-mail from this morning with a phone call telling me that I can go on Friday afternoon and have them re-print the letter to turn in that day. So why don't I feel any better? Mainly because this little incident reveals my inability to manage my home well, my lack of attention to detail and my shame over failing in these areas. To you, it may seem like a small thing to have lost a piece of paper. But I see it as symbolic of much, much more.
4 comments:
As I have been reading your posts lately, I think you and I are quite similar in personality! For example, we both suffer from being way too hard on ourselves. One thing I'm learning is to let myself off the hook every now and then. Or you could just blame J instead of yourself ;)
I have lost SO many things lately! An envelope with money; 3 $50 gift cards I got for Christmas; the list goes on. My negative feelings about this go WAY beyond just being inconvenienced...I hate feeling like I can't "handle things" around here anymore.
THANKFULLY, I found all the things I had lost, but not without losing much sleep at night. I was really worked up over the gift cards, as you can imagine, and finally prayed and prayed and prayed until I searched long enough to find them. They were gone for about a month! It was awful.
ANYWAYS, just wanted to let you know I could totally relate to your thoughts on this event--I know what you mean!
I completely understand this. I'm constantly losing and misplacing things. I get so angry at myself. It often moves beyond anger into self-loathing, but when I hear of someone else doing something similiar, I think they're being WAY too hard on themselves.
Even though you don't need to find it now, I hope you find it. :)
I should probably mention that my reaction was perhaps effected by the fact that I started my period the day before realizing the letter was lost... I was not at the height of emotional stability, so my leap into self-doubt and self-recrimination was faster than usual. Still, I think it's pretty typical behavior for me to take a small thing like a lost piece of paper and turn it into a huge symbol to me of what a failure I am.
I am working on a more balanced view of myself... clearly, it's slow going.
BTW, Isabella, I love the suggestion that I just blame J instead. :-)
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