The way to say it!

[Guest guest]

Yenaine,thank you *so much* for your suggestions and ideas!!! Your post was

great!!!!

I changed the thread title since this isn't so much about Bunny now

(although he is ever present in my heart lol)

Wow,it's extremely helpful to get this kind of feedback from someone who

deals with these issues on a professional basis and who knows how to handle

them.What you wrote is not too much at all--I sincerely,totally appreciate your

thoughtful post

Ok,so...trying not to write a book here ...as I was reading your

suggestions I realized that my main blockage truly is the Ellen's mother

question.I feel like I can't possibly proceed or even decide if I would proceed

without trying to resolve that issue.That if I could meet with her,it could

unblock me and the way forward would be much much more clear.And then I could

decide about the rest.

What you said about mothers of deceased children being grateful that

anyone even remembers their child was *extremely helpful*!!! Yes,I believe this

is equally true of Ellen's mother.She became " friends " with my nada for those

two years we knew eachother before Ellen died--then after the funeral nada

dropped her pretty much,I think because of her own discomfort and not knowing

what to do or say,etc.It was definitely like nada's life went on and she

forgot.I have wanted so much to contact Ellen's mother but I'm just not sure how

to approach it.I'm too close to all of it emotionally--I'm complicating it; I

can't seem to simplify it down to what would I actually say! What do you

think,as an objective observer? I mean,any thoughts on how to initiate contact

in the first place,leaving out all the other reasons why?

I really would like to finally " bite the bullet " on this,as they

say,because seriously unless I get a better sense of where Ellen's mother is

with her death I just *can't* even contemplate making my version of events

public in any way.

But here is why I haven't done it (although believe me,I've imagined

doing it many times over the years)--and tell me honestly if you think this is

me being a self castigating KO,too,ok?--the last impression Ellen's mother has

of me isn't of me as a sort of formless little five year old.Her last impression

of me is from when I was at the same school as Ellen's younger sister,L. and

also from an encounter she had with nada when I was living in Paris,at which

time nada ran into her in some store and told her all about how I was this

selfish horrible person who took off for Paris and left her in the dust--which

reinforced the unfavorable view I think that L. had of me,which she would have

shared with her mother.

Maybe I'm thinking too much,but...I convinced nada and fada to let me

apply to a performing arts school in the city when I was fifteen and I got in.By

the end of that school year I had turned the school upside down and the

headmaster told me that I was not welcome to return.The story you told in one of

your posts about coming into school just to take your exams made me laugh

because it reminded me of me: by the time we had our end of the year final exams

I had been basically banned from the premises and had to sneak into the building

to take my exams.It's another long story!!! It was a great school,very liberal

and open,but the headmaster was a petty tyrant.I tried to institute some

changes,such as not dissecting dead kittens in biology class,something the

biology teacher agreed to when I protested,but when he shipped the vat of dead

kittens back to the evil lab they'd come from--for the first time---and the

headmaster found out that I had started a successful protest,he was pissed off

that a mere student would direct " school policy " and when he decided to try to

lord it over me,I launched another protest and formed a sort of teacher/student

union....and inadvertantly started a little revolution with the teachers

protesting his policies and one of their protest actions was to put me in charge

of a theatre class,directing a play I had written,like an anarchist style

protest--and when the headmaster tried to shut the play down the teachers

threatened to strike and the other students threatened to walk out,so he had to

back down.And man,did he hate me by that point.He was always looking for *any*

infraction to punish me with.Silly reckless me,I then took on the history

teacher who was a *complete* misogynist who distorted women's roles in history:

to him,all female historical figures were just whores and when we were studying

the French Revolution he told us all these weird salacious tales about the

revolutionary's " mistresses " that were like cheap porno instead of history and

then one day he brought in a record of Poulenc's opera about the beheading of

the Carmelite nuns: the final chorus is the nuns singing on their way to the

guillotine and as their heads are chopped off one by one the chorus diminishes

until there's one last voice and then--CHOP!--silence.He was pacing about the

room as the nuns were beheaded and he was clearly getting off on it like some

psycho and as soon as the record ended I stood up and stated that until he

committed himself to actually teaching us *history* rather than use the

classroom as a platform for his sick misogynistic biases that I was going to

boycott his class and did anyone want to join me?

Of course nobody dared to,but I walked out.The headmaster then ordered

that I sit out that class in his office and as word spread about my protest,the

other students visited me in the office to offer their support and the

headmaster kept having to tell them to leave.The other teachers were thanking me

for protesting because they all thought the history teacher was a creep and they

wished he'd be fired.

Near the end of the year this headmaster was constantly threatening me

with expulsion and arbitrarily ordering me to stay in his office.The teachers

and the students decided to stage a protest in the auditorium but the headmaster

responded in a rage saying he'd fire any teacher who participated ( " I have all

summer to hire new teachers " ) and that he'd suspend every single student who

participated if he had to: he was standing there screaming, " I have your parent's

phone numbers and I have all day! " They backed down--he took me into his office

and told me that I was banned from the school grounds.

The other thing is that at the time I was a very vocal,very out lesbian.At

the time,anyway,I thought that was what I was.I discovered later that I like men

too--but at the time I was defiantly " out " and defying anyone to dare bully me

about it.Everyone knew.The highlight of that was that two gay male students were

empowered and emboldened by my stance to " come out " publically too and the other

students and most of the teachers were rallying around our " right " to " free

expression " while the headmaster was,again,going nuts because he thought that

the school was going to get a " reputation " .Then two of the teachers,a male

theatre teacher and a female dance teacher, " came out " publically too in the

interests of promoting a " safe environment " and when the headmaster tried to

sanction them for engaging in " unprofessional behavior " we the students

threatened to call the media and forced him to leave them alone.I think he felt

like he was losing control of his school but most of us students were bonding

and getting a buzz from all the excitement.I knew,just knew,that at some point

the head that was going to roll would be mine.And although most of the students

were having a blast from all the protesting and uproar,there was a sizable

minority who totally resented all the commotion and who supported the headmaster

in his efforts to restore order--these students asked me on several occasions to

cease and desist and chided me for being such a disruption.

Anyway,in the midst of all of this,one day a younger girl from one of

the junior classes approached me on the stairs and shyly asked me if I was from

X town.I said yes and she said, " You probably don't remember me... "

I didn't recognize her.I told her,no,I didn't remember her but had we

worked together on a theatre project?

She said hesitantly, " I was only a baby at the time but I think you were

friends with my sister Ellen... "

As soon as she said that,I dissociated.Completely.I could not access

that experience.It was a personal taboo--and what did I do?,this breaker of

taboos who was known as being so " cool " ,I walked away.I frigging walked away

from her! Like a complete effing jerk.I wwnt blank and shut down and I just

turned and walked away.While in my head,my internal voice was screaming: How can

you be so rude?! What's wrong with you?! Don't do that to her!... But like a

zombie,I just walked away.

L. was,at the time,one of the " younger students " the headmaster was

trying to " protect " from our decadence.L. was one of those students from the

conservative outlying suburbs who stayed out of the fray,never making waves or

calling any attention to herself.It was students like her,according to the

headmaster,who kept the school functioning as it should be: students who

attended their classes like quiet little mice.I didn't recognize her or know who

she was because she wasn't part of the core of students who were firebombing

" the establishment " with me.

And the only reason why she had approached me at all was because she

thought I must be the from X town who had been her dead sister's

friend.And because I had known her sister,she was willing to strike up a

connection with me for sentimental reasons...and I frigging walked away from her

like she was a pariah.Not because I thought she was.But because my conditioning

was to automatically deny any thought of Ellen.Of course she couldn't have known

that.

She also didn't know that,because of that encounter,I slowly and quietly

had a nervous breakdown.I couldn't stop crying at home,at night,although I

didn't know why.I felt like I was losing my mind from this grief I couldn't even

name.Nada very helpfully screamed at me to stop crying,she was " so sick " of

listening to me cry.I felt suicidal,but I didn't know why.I felt like I was

dying inside,too.

When nada ran into Ellen's mother in that store,she said to me later that

Ellen's mother had seemed embarassed about me having attended the same school as

L and it was like she didn't know what to say to nada.Yes,that's nada's

unreliable word but I believe it because the last thing she knew about me was

that I had been this obnoxious lesbian iconoclast who completely disrupted the

school's functioning and that when her daughter had kindly tried to approach me

in spite of that,I had rudely walked away as if I had no idea who Ellen was and

didn't care at all--or worse,that I just didn't want to know.So that's her

impression of me.

How do I do damage control on that? What could I say now? What would be my

reasons for wanting to contact her about Ellen now? How would I apologize to L.

for being so rude to her?

I know that I can't tell Ellen's mother that I was in love with her

daughter...she's a devout Catholic...I seriously doubt that she'd want to

believe that her daughter might have grown up to be queer and honestly since

Ellen was only five when she died I can't say myself if that would have been the

case.That's the other problem with anything that I would write about Ellen: the

precocious but romantic nature of our friendship.I don't want to edit that out

but I also don't want to insult her memory,in her mother's Catholic view of it.

Any more ideas ????? I do know how I could find Ellen's mother so

it's only a matter now of figuring out how to initiate contact.I need basic

instruction here,I think--whatever simplicity there is to this situation is

eluding me entirely at the moment.

Everything you wrote in your post was really helpful and I thank you!!!!

See,I wrote a " book " anyway and you know what I did try to keep it

brief...oh,well...But how is this for a new year's resolution: I will contact

Ellen's mother so I can find out what *she* thinks about the whole

thing...and go from there,armed with some knowledge,hopefully...

Any thoughts you have to share with this neurotic KO would be very

gratefully received...I can't thank you enough for reaching out to give me

encouragement and support.Your words made me feel like I can actually do

this.You are a diamond,Yenaine!!!!! MWAH!!!!! Merci infiniment!!!!!