Yet again, I've come across a greeting card that triggered a blog post. This time, I wasn't looking at the cards; I just happened past it, walking through the grocery store. I have another copy of it somewhere, buried in a box, but I'd completely forgotten about it until this fateful trip.
No, it's not a younger me, though God knows I had that haircut (and color) forever—thanks to my mom for standing me on the front porch with the Fiskars and whacking some bangs to frame my face. That doesn't look like my dad, and I don't have a younger sister. And I'm betting the Buffy-Davis-looking sibling didn't make that bubble-lettered sign. (Did no one teach the maker {possibly Stephanie herself} to plan her layout, so the compound word wouldn't have to be broken up?)
I like Stephanie and her sign. I mean, it doesn't have the colorful burst of salutation of the others, but she obviously digs corn on the cob. She took the time to scrawl her love across the page—again, note the lack of planned layout—and share it with the world. I'm betting she was rushed ("Hurry up, so we can take the damn picture, Steph!") and didn't have time to illuminate her proclamation of maizean love. But she seems more joyous about sharing her thoughts than the other two.
So the whole Please disregard Stephanie thing really irks me.
This Stephanie hates the feeling of being disregarded. I don't care if you don't like me. I can deal with people being angry or upset with me, as long as there's the promise of communication regarding the problem. But to feel like I've been dismissed, as though my feelings and I suddenly aren't worth the time and effort... well, that's just infuriating.
I can look back at my life and pinpoint very specific moments when I've felt dismissed by others. Many, but not all, surround traumatic events. The sting of having had my feelings pushed to the side is still strong sometimes, even when it seems the drama was a lifetime ago. Usually it involved being on the receiving end of acts that were completely outside my control, acts that made me feel worthless as a person. Memories of those real and imagined transgressions can still catapult me into questioning my inherent value.
But there have been times when I've been the cause (or the catalyst) for people withdrawing from my life, deciding that I was a liability to their own worth. It's like I've suddenly been told that I can't do something—talk to you, see you, tell you what I'm thinking. I can guarantee that the worst possible way to get me to stop doing something is to tell me, through actions or words, that I can't do it. It makes me petulant and bratty, and I tend to lash back in ways that are likely to hurt me the most.
Regardless of the mode of dismissal, I need to find resolution, some kind of emotional detente, to be able to move forward. I have a tendency to get stuck in the mire of overanalysis, picking apart the woulda-coulda-shoulda of the whole situation. Again, I'm okay as long as there's the promise of communication, the possibility of potential closure. It's when that's withheld from me that I get annoyed and angry and vindictive.
So I hope that Stephanie doesn't feel bitter that's she's effectively being told, "No one cares about you or your damn corn, girlie!" I hope she revels in the fact that she's not like the others, that she's unabashed in sharing her eccentricities and uniquely profound view of her inner world. I hope she reaches over and pulls her sister's pigtails, right before draws sardonic stick figures of her dad and a cob of corn on the back of his picture.
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