SHEsaysWITHaSMILE.blogspot.com

THE PEANUT BUTTER STORY by (me!) sandra, tvgp

part of the longing in me is born from wanting people to somehow understand just how severe, how devastating, debilitating, traumatic, destructive, life-altering & paralyzing post traumtic stress disorder is

and i know in advance, unless you experience trauma/crisis that brings it on; you'll never really know

and so, of course, i don't want one single person to know.

and i love the quote (which i'll research later) which says something about -if you really want to know what war is like, then when you're sitting in the theatre to watch a war film

you'd need enemies to come out of nowhere and start shooting out in the audience.

i've said it before. i'm repeating myself i know. -you can't know. you are lucky if you don't know.

i don't want you to know.

but i can't resist sharing this: about the peanut butter & my sister. -because if you let this sink in...

it helps my cause. -so:

for all the time we grew up in hayward together during our childhood, our peanut butter was kept in the pantry.

and for all the time we were roommates, as young women, before getting married -we kept our peanut butter in the pantry

and for all the time we lived separately -married moms. we each kept our peanut butter in the pantry

so for over THIRTY FIVE years easy - the peanut butter was kept in the pantry.

but -now both divorced, when i moved in with her and we became roommates again,

the peanut butter was no longer kept in the pantry.

it is kept in the refrigerator.

the reason for this, i'm told, -because i was not there, is because one morning my sister woke and found a whole bunch of creepy, crawly, highly disgusting ants crawling all in and out and around the peanut butter.

to prevent this kind of thing from ever! happening again -peanut butter goes in the refrigerator; period.

so let that sink in: one incident of creepy/crawly ants -gross, but not poisonous;

ugly but not life-threatening; running around a jar, not her skin.

this one incident over-rode over thirty five years of experience not having ants crawl in the peanut butter and has permanently changed her habit/behavior/decision when it comes to storing peanut butter.

and we all have our pantries. and we all have our peanut butter. and we all have our ants. and we all have our refrigerators.

but there's something about taking this story in & sharing it, that helps me validate just how

how

well, i still don't have words.

posted by SHE @ 10:39 PM