Returning from London

We’re on the plane—it was a vicious struggle, but we made it. I definitely bought too many books—I should have at least bought a carryon bag for them, instead of using the Tower of London shopping bag! It was very sturdy for a shopping bag—plastic with plastic tubular handles—but not for being filled up with books and Cadbury chocolate and carried around. Bad, very bad idea. The handles fell off when I was in the center of Marylebone Street, in the meridian/walkway. I took the shopping bag and the big suitcase (now also heavy with books and souvenirs) one at a time when it came to stairs in the Tube stations.

During the ride to Heathrow, I sat down and worked at mindful breathing and felt so much better—I’d been nervous and jittery since I woke at 4:19 am, before the alarm would have gone off. After we got to the airport, Sally confused the woman behind the counter by saying that our flight was to Chicago, rather than saying that it was to Washington, D.C., where there will be a stop, and it didn’t occur to me to say otherwise. So the clerk disappeared from behind the counter for about fifteen minutes, came back and asked if the plane would be stopping in Washington, D.C., and we were alarmingly short on time by then. It was a jog through the airport, to get to the plane, but we made it, that’s the important thing. It certainly didn’t help that I had to take my shoes off to get through security.

We even had a few minutes to sit in the waiting area before boarding the plane. During that time, some names were called over an intercom, and to my amusement one of them was Buddha, or at least sounded like it. I said, “Buddha on board!” Even my sister was amused (for a change) and said that’s a good thing and that she could use some enlightenment. I was quite surprised to hear her say this. I mentioned that before taking the trip, I had thought of traveling to England with Gandhi as a sort of spiritual companion, because of his experience traveling to London. Brat actually admitted that it would have been easier to travel with Gandhi than with her. I nearly said, “That’s the understatement of the millennium.” I do not want to stoop to her level and be cruel, although that would have been a great opportunity to make some comment. Thanks to all these oppressive relatives, I may be leaning in the direction of becoming silent, no longer speaking, just as I had through elementary and junior high school. I need to, Buddha-like, not care what people think of me, even what relatives think of me.

Two seats away from us, a guy is reading the hardcover edition of The Da Vinci Code.


We started the flight for D.C. to Chicago. The clouds look like a fluffy white mountain range.
Flight Delay: It’s raining in Chicago, hard enough that the airport is closed off for the next 55 minutes. So here we are in Grand Rapids, Michigan! They’re refueling the plane. So Mom is in Chicago, already waiting for us, in part of the airport. Fortunately, Sally’s on her cell phone with Mom, so she knows what’s going on. Mom is circling around and around the airport (O’Hare), but we don’t expect to be there for at least one and a half hours. She said it’s raining really hard, so no wonder the airport is closed to all traffic.

Back in Indiana, where I'm grumpy and tired:
Mom pulled into the driveway and parked the car, and suddenly my evil stepsister whined, “Let me out.” Or something to that effect, demanding that I get out so that she could get out. “Would someone move so I can get out!” Since she was being (surprise) rude, I took my time, and she proceeded to yell at me. I snapped back, and the brat screamed, exactly like a two year old, “FINE! I’M SORRY!” The brat still hasn’t learned what the word sorry means. It is not something you scream at the top of your lungs, any more than it is something that you say as you continue to do the offensive act. She stomped into the house, and my mom went into the house, not commenting on the brat’s insufferable behavior (as if it were perfectly normal), but I stayed outside, to load my luggage into my car and to stay the hell away from the evil brat. Her very presence is repulsive to me. While I was behind my car, with the trunk open, Evil Spawn came back out and said to me in a calm voice, as if nothing had happened, “Are you coming in soon? Your curly fries are getting cold.” Mom had stopped at Arby’s on the way home, and I had asked for curly fries and a chocolate shake.

I turned and glared at the brat, and I thought at her, “GET OUT OF MY SIGHT. THAT IS THE LEAST YOU CAN DO.” But I just glared and didn’t say it. Living in Topeka, being around oppressive conservative relatives and all, has really got me acting as if I live in pseudo-Communist China and spies are everywhere and if I’m not careful what I say I’ll be imprisoned and tortured. I don’t remember what I said to the brat, but I was so enraged that I could scarcely speak to her at that point. The audacity of her, coming out there and pretending she hadn’t just had a two-year-old’s temper tantrum, not to mention that she hadn’t just marred my London vacation for the past two weeks.

It amazes me now that I actually had thought of that brat as one of the few relatives I related to and got along with—I had that belief for approximately a decade. Not so now. I shouldn’t have to go all the way to London to find out that my sister is a foul-tempered, sarcastic, disrespectful, condescending, contemptuous and malicious brat. I could care less if I ever see her again. I am deeply hurt—I feel so betrayed and disillusioned. My first visit to England would have been fifty times better if I had gone by myself, rather than with that odious brat.

She took situations—such as discovering that the hostel reservation was bogus—and made them fifty times worse than they really were. The reason I was so nervous in these situations was because of that evil brat’s foul temper and insults—if she hadn’t been there, I would have more easily taken things as they came. Even with the brat there, sort of in the back of my head (or perhaps more like the middle, just behind the disgust and rage that I felt at that insufferable brat) were thoughts like, “So what if we’re wandering lost in London in the middle of the night? That building next to us is three hundred years old! Enjoy the scenery!” But no, the brat has to be as negative and destructive as possible. She should be grateful that I was willing to travel with her—a foolish choice on my part—and if I had known that she was like that, I would not have chosen her for a traveling companion.

It’s pretty ridiculous to treat your older sister with scathing contempt when she’s gone through all the time, money, and trouble to travel to a foreign country with you. I really don’t want to spend any more time with that brat. I shall never confide in her like a friend again.
Part of me knows that the brat’s bad attitudes and evil behavior are her problems, not mine, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting me, especially since this is my sister, not some vague acquaintance, and I have for years now treated her and thought of her as a close friend, only to discover that she is definitely nothing of the sort.

I do not need praise any more than I need insults. However, I am starved of the former and suffocated with the latter, and at this stage the treatment others give me still affects me emotionally. I have a long way to go to become a bodhisattva.



Here I am in the house where I grew up. One thing that occurred to me when I was here just before going to England was that I was in the place where I started (OK, I lived in another house before this, but it’s somewhat metaphorical) and would be going to a far different place, a foreign country that I had never physically entered before and that sharply contrasted with this place. There are a great many places to go, and not just in this reality, but also in the inner world. The places that take me away from alienating and oppressive relatives are the best places, but I also have to shake off the pain they give me.

“To thine own self be true,” –Shakespeare, Hamlet.