I GAVE UP

The establishment has won. I have spent ten horrid days agonizing over the injustice of the court system. I have begged and pleaded for legal help and have been refused help by four lawyers because there was not enough money involved. I have lost...but I have lost more than 1600 dollars. I have lost all my faith in the legal system and its capacity for justice. The steps I must take are not only complicated if I want to apply for a rehearing, the likelihood of getting one is very slim. Then I must face retrieving the money and, knowing Renee, that won't be easy either.
I do not want to erode my life any further with this kind of poison and I am trying to glean what I have gained from realizing that anyone anywhere can destroy me simply by shouting louder than I and creating false statements against me. So often, I have heard that Renee will have bad karma and I laugh at such naivete. Renee has a car she got for 1400 dollars worth over $5000 . She has the sense that whenever she wants something she can get it by shouting louder than her adversary.
I think once again I must pull into myself and say the only thing in my power is to make my tiny little world work for ME. I must try to make my days as happy as they can be and not try to defend myself from evil; only work very hard to run away from it. I have no defense against it.
I wonder too at what undefined hatred prompted the judge to rescind the first decision on the basis of two obviously fabricated pieces of opinion. There were no legal documents introduced into the case.
I believe and have always believed that people are intrinsically good and will only do evil when they feel threatened. What did I do to threaten Renee? What on earth did I do to threaten the judge?
Of course I want them both to have terrible karma, endure heart attacks, physical dismemberment and mental torment. I would love the car to blow up and destroy Renee and all her family and the earth to open up and send floods and havoc on Richard Romansky (the judge)
But none of that can take away my own sense that this world does not protect those who are kind and want to reach out to help their friends. Instead it punishes them for being foolish and shortsighted, not realizing that anyone anywhere can decide to hate them for no reason other than their discomfort at being faced with a goodness they cannot match.

Depression

When we are hurt over and over again the best choice of action seems like retreat but in reality the only way we can overcome that sense of being a victim and of going nowhere no matter how much one tries is to force ourselves to take positive action. We need to give direction to our life ourselves. No one can do it for us. Then we enable ourselves to move toward our dreams however slowly. Making the effort to force ourselves into a postive mode is well worth it. The trick is to think small: narrow your sights to the next hour, the next minute, the next second and make that tiny space satisfying to you. The big picture can be horrifying indeed but it need not be once you break it down into tiny segments . Remember, each step that leads you in an unpleasant direction is not a mistake, it is a learning experience.
I am always horrified when I read of people deliberately sacrificing weaker people in their haste to save themselves. I do not need to save myself physically nearly as much as I need to preserve my sense of integrity and faith in the consistency of my moral imperatives. If I don't live up to them, I am nothing even if my body is still breathing and eating.
Although I agree that mental illness is a chemical imbalance, I believe we have some control over that imbalance and if we catch it before it conquers us we can push ourselves out of the depths of despair by doing small pleasurable things that give us a sense of success. Motivation is always the key to a successful life. If we WANT to be healthy and happy, we can make it happen.

I LOST THE CASE

I am trying to come to terms with the fact that a judge ruled against me on a case I had already won for no possible reason other than that I offended him in some way. It could have been my age, my attitude, my manner that reminded him of a person he didn't like but whatever it was, he refused to enter my letter of confirmation that I had sold my car for 3,000 as evidence because it was hearsay and accepted Renee's fraudulent letter from her DAUGHTER asserting I had made a deal for $1400 (no date by the way) and accepted the testimony of a computer expert that it is possible to alter e mails even though on my particular machine I cannot do that.
My decision now is how to move forward and the questions I must ask myself is how much of my energy do I want to spend on this evil, angry woman? Inevitably the more I fight her, the more I descend to her level.
Perhaps time will dull my horror that the legal system that is supposed to protect me from harm has failed me once again. I sit here staring at a valid e -mail stating my price for my car, and another valid response stating that that price was accepted. I read further e mails saying that I tried to be accommodating, I charged no interest, I allowed Renee to set the schedule of payments to her budget and sold her the car for 2500 LESS THAN the blue book value. I let her drive it immediately without waiting for full payment because she said she was desperate for a car to get to work.
Why am I being punished this way?
I think the reason is that I am an irresistible target.
I live alone, have no family to back me up, no name that is recognized in the greater community and because of my age, my reliability is in question.
I know there was a miscarriage of justice and I know I am right. I have neither lied nor cheated. However I am uncertain if 1600 is worth another battle.
I keep thinking if someone had stopped Hitler when he was only committing small violations to human rights, perhaps the holocaust would never have happened and I think to myself, "You have a valid contract; You won the case the first time; Stop her before she does this to other innocents. "
And then I admit that I don't want to "get back" at Renee for such noble reasons. I want to kill her and destroy her because she has lied and cheated knowingly, has harassed and threatened me and won because of those very actions.
I cannot believe these motives justify further legal action.
And yet....and yet....

evil

Lynn Ruth, I don't know what to say as you are exposed to sheer evil. I too am beginning to believe that the evil bullies in the world own it and run it. Yet you cannot abandon your core values even if that means you may be vulnerable again to fraud and deceit. I don't know how that woman can live with herself and go to bed at night thinking she lives a virtuous life. Or she may be in denial, like some evil people I know are. I think this President is evil, in denial and clueless: one photo op of him hugging a black person does not correct his record of ignoring blacks, ignoring poverty and ignoring the neediest and weakest in our midst. He too, is a liar, like the woman you faced today and yet this does not make me want to become like him or her, even though they seem successful and seem to go unpunished after conning the entire world. Ultimately, they're conning themselves too and that is something they have to come to terms with when they have their Day of Judgment or find themselves on their deathbed looking back. You have to keep on treating people how you yourself want to be treated. That is what I live by, even if that means I get hurt. I get rewarded too by doing this and that is what matters. So hang in there, the truth will set you free.

STANDING UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS

I went to Superior Court yesterday to defend myself. Rene, the woman who refused to pay the balance she owed on my 1994 Toyota and lost the judgement in Small Claims Court appealed the decision.
She presented as new evidence a fraudulent letter from her daughter asserting that I had offered her the car for $1400.00 (the cost was and still is $3000) and introduced an expert who said that it was easy for me to alter e mails (which I used as my evidence of our agreement)
The case was called for 9 A.M. They moved it to another courtroom with a judge pro-tem and then there was an alarm that forced us to evacuate the entire buildiing, stand outside and return go through security and resume where we left off. My case was not heard until 11:30.
I listened to this woman accuse me of lying, perjure her daughter and attack me on every level as an imept, inadequate, ignorant human being. I was a liar, I cheated, I took advantage of her...Then she told the judge she only wanted to make everything right because we lived in a small town and she had her good name to defend.
I felt helpless and unarmed in the face of the power and determination of her presentation and it suddenly occurred to me: What am I fighting for?
This car sale has taken hours of my time, and I very possibly will not recieve a positive judgement; yet I neither lied, altered the facts nor tried to be devious in my defense. I did nothing but offer a car that listed for over $5,000 to a person I thought was my good friend for $3,000 in an effort to be kind because she only had one car and her husband was forced to take and bring her from work. I won once and now I have to fight again?
Is this how kindness is repaid in our world today?
And so no matter whether I win or lose this case, I have lost. I trusted another human being. I reached out to help her and that help is exploding into rage, anger and false accusations. If I win the case I will have to fight for every penny I retrieve and it is only money I will receive. My trust and faith in human honor is shattered.
My biggest fear is that given the same situation with someone I cared about in need and having the power to alleviate the situation, I would do the same thing. I cannot seem to learn that I am a target and I think that must be because it would never ever occur to me to hurt or deliberately malign someone else. I am beginning to believe that is a terrible weakness in my character.
I feel defenseless in a world where one person's determination can mangle truth, destroy integrity and eat up another's faith in the innate goodness of mankind.

THE SCOTLAND EXPERIENCE

I have just spend a month performing in Scotland with amazing success. I taught a hands on art class in the mornings and at night I performed in a comedy show I produced and then went to another cabaret show produced by Kerry Norman from Oxford and did outragous singing and stripping to an enthusastic, loving audience. My art show sold out every day and although the comedy show was not a smash hit, it did consistently well. We always got laughs and it ended with cheers and accolades because I sang The Strip Polka in a ridiculous costume no one my age should ever risk.
I loved every minute.
However the immense negativity of those first two weeks taught me about dealing with egos that I did not understand. The two women with me then made no secret that they thought of me as an inexperienced and stupid yet sweet old lady and they were determined to manipulate me so that the show became theirs instead of ours. I fielded many barbed remarks and veiled hints that I should get off the stage and let them perform so I could learn from their superior talents. I felt intimidated by their greater experence in the comedy field and was repeatedly puzzled when they insisted our show was not well received because I heard laughter and I got applause. Among their solutions to a dilemma I did not see was to tell me I needed to shorten my time on stage and that I was not getting the show off to a good start when I MC'd. I acquiesced by letting the comedian who got the least amount of laughs do our MC'ing and I believe that was a good decision. Her comedy though it is excellent and she is well paid for it here in the Bay Area was too disturbing for the conserative Scotsmen in our audience. They could handle an old lady acting foolish but not a black lesbian with dredlocks and that was their loss. I did not give up my stage time although they asked me to do so but they believed I was unaware that our new MC was cutting me short in every show. My thinking was that in the end it really didn't matter that much if one of us did 10 minutes or 15 and so I let all this ride. Besides they had me convinced that I was a lousy producer who couldnt work with people and didn't know a good joke from a dead one.
And then a miracle happened. The two women left and we had four new comedians perform on our stage. These three angels (to me) were only interested in having fun and doing their best. The critical, angry and judgemental atmosphere was gone and we had one delightful performance after another. We all loved one another. We all enjoyed performing. and we all had a great time.
In that first week one of the comedians said to me, "You are having a lot of success but we only have this one show." and that was when I got the hint that their anger at me was not about my performance but about the accolades I was receiving . I assure anyone reading this that I was getting cheers for being an old lady with spunk, not for my comedic talents.
How very sad for them. They lost that magnificent delight the rest of us enjoyed during our run. The reviews were spotty, some good, some medium and some bad but who cares? Karyn, Phil, Carla, George and I had the best time of our lives and when you come down to it, the two who were so intent on creating a money making "good" show were the losers. I find that terribly sad.

PUPPY POWER

There is nothing like a puppy to help you reconnect with who you are, Inez. When I got out of the hospital after my four-month incarceration, I decided to get a dog to help me return to health. My reasoning was that I needed to be outside in the fresh air (at that time it WAS fresh) and one way to do that was to walk a dog. I still remember the day I found David, a small black bundle of love totally devoted to me. I had never experienced that kind of devotion nor had I ever felt my responsibilty to a living thing quite so vividly as I did with that little dog. I sincerely believe that walking him every day gave me a new self, one far nicer and more generous than the one who entered that hospital. I had found someone to care about other than myself. I recall walking down the highway with my little man when he was attacked by a violent and angry German Shepherd. At the time I weighed about 60 pounds and I was still not in the best of health but as the dog approached my "baby" I did not hesitate. I scooped him up in my arms to protect him and by some glorious miracle, both of us escaped unharmed. That incident taught me as no other ever has, the true power of love. I did not give one thought to my life or its value, when the dog was in danger. I understood for the first time how enriching it is to love a creature even more than you love and protect yourself.
Enjoy your little puppy Inez! He will give you hours of peace and you will find his devotion a spark that gives you compassion for all living things. My Donald, Dorothy and Amy are my connection to a good and benevolent world ; they keep me in it and force me to remember that I am not the center of my universe. That is a good perspective for us all to have.