Catching Idle Butterflies

People will only use me - desensitization training lesson 2

We lived in Minnesota for only a year, but it was a year of powerful and lasting lessons.

I began to realize then Margaret could make friends quicker than I could, and she had a lot of them. Was I jealous? Certainly. But I also wanted to know how she could gain so many friends with little effort and I couldn’t. As hard as I tried, even her friends wanted little to do with me. I started to look at myself from the outside, to discover what was wrong with me. I don’t think this was a conscious effort at the time, but looking back, that’s what I did.

But I didn’t find any answers except to give my all to the one friend I did have. Susan Slivnic. By the mere fact I remember her entire name (though I’m guessing on the spelling) gives a clue the lasting impact she had on my training.

So desperate for her friendship, I was willing to do almost anything to keep it.

I invited Susan for a sleep over one weekend. With everyone else asleep, in the dark Susan said, “Go into your mom’s purse and take $40.”

“What?” I asked.

“Go take her money. I’ll let you keep half.”

I tried to argue with her, but she only said, “I won’t be your friend anymore if you don’t.”

The fear of getting caught stealing from my mother didn’t exceed my fear of losing my only friend. I did as she asked.

I snuck into the livingroom and rifled through my mother’s purse with only the streetlights illuminating my actions. I found two twenties, a ten and a few ones. Here I paused. I knew if I took the twenties, Mom would find out for certain. But what to do?

I came up with a compromise and took the ten.

When I returned, shaking and terrified, I handed the ten over and said, “This is all she had, Susan. I’m sorry.”

Susan took the ten and said, “You’re lying. She had more than this.”

I swallowed and eeked out, “No. That’s it.”

She glared at me, hid the ten in her backpack and without another word turned away from me and went to sleep.

I slept not a wink that night, guilt filling my entire soul for both stealing from my mother and lying to my best friend.

After Susan left the next day Mom sat me down and asked, “Did you take $50 from my purse last night?”

$50? I thought.

“No,” I answered in a small voice. I then realized how Susan knew I had indeed lied to her. She had taken $40 before asking me to steal $40 more.

Mom, for whatever reason believed I didn’t take it. Perhaps she interpreted the shock and confusion on my face as the truth that I had not stolen from her.

“I’m sorry, Anne,” Mom said, “but I can’t allow Susan to come over anymore.”

I didn’t argue. I was too busy being scared I had lost my friend.

I had, but her next actions proving it to me also taught me my next lesson.

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PS Thank you all for your kind words and advice. You have given me much to think about. I will say now I doubt if I will respond to your comments either here or privately until I'm done with this subject. But I do want you to know, though I may not respond, I'm still listening and learning from you.