Dare I Eat a Pear?

“Now I brought pears from my father’s farm, and I want you to eat them!” March screeched at me as she loomed drunkenly in my office door.

First of all, ain’t no damn way I’m eatin’ any food her bitter old ass offers me. It’s probably poisoned. Second of all, I do not like her energy or aura, and prefer to avoid touching objects she touches. Third of all, as I told her:

“I don’t like pears! And I’m not going to start liking them now.”

March spends at least an hour telling me what a terrible person I am, and for some reason, I listen, and attempt to reason with her. Haven’t I learned my lesson with alcoholics and dry drunks yet? Their perspective and verbal diarrhea bears zero relationship to reality.

After every battle with March, I reflect, and I ultimately realize that everything she says is either a result of her delusional thinking and/or an attempt to manipulate, wear down, and sabotage the other person (me). Nothing positive comes from attempting to listen to it. It makes me feel like shit even if I know her comments do not hold water. I’ve finally learned that it always makes you feel bad to hear people say bad things about you, and always makes you feel good to hear people say good things about you, regardless of the validity of either, so you might as well reach for the better feeling conversations.

I used to think that listening to the ravings of a dry drunk or an alcoholic made them feel loved, accepted, and heard, things they needed so badly, and if I could just give them those things, miraculous change would ensue. I now know better. First of all, they rarely remember that we had the conversation or that I listened, and hence I failed to “make them feel loved, accepted, and heard,” and therefore no miraculous change ensued. Who did I think I was? God? An ineffective one that felt like shit because she was so ineffective?

I refuse to do this any more, especially for March. From now on, I plan to treat her as if she’s mold: some unwanted thing that came into my house, that I will have professionally removed as soon as the funds for that come available.

Do you think I’m being extreme? Callous? Un-Buddha-like? Well, I did attempt to give her a chance. I invited her to eat with us. I served her sangria AND Banana Pudding, my second most powerful asset. The next day she wrote me an extremely rude email, in addition to her typical rude comments. Just because I meditate every day, does not mean I can now cope with rudeness and insults, especially from people to whom I have served Banana Pudding.

Banana Pudding is my acid test. If we cannot make peace after I have served you Banana Pudding, there is no hope. None. March and I came to this crossroads almost two months ago. She refuses to leave unless I evict her, which will cost $1000.

I cannot abide this scourge on my house, the negativity she emanates. Could the Lawd/Universe be forcing me to yet another lesson? This lesson of having to live or work in close quarters with an unreasonable and dominant woman keeps coming up for some reason. I normally just leave, except this time, I’m not leaving, because this is MY home. I assume I have to face it head on, and deal with it, or not mind it, except I do, a helluva lot. What shittinness! What shittiness!