Teenage Drama and Cows at the Airfield

On Saturday, Eli and I each had an eye exam scheduled at SpecSavers in the Dundrum Town Centre.  Mine was for 11 a.m., and his was for 11:10 a.m.

I know it might sound dumb, but eye exams create a lot of anxiety for me.  I don't like the air puff (not many do, I'm sure), and the whole "Which one is better, A or B?  Which one is better, 1 or 2?" thing is a gentle form of torture.  THEY BOTH LOOK THE SAME WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?

I got a text around 9:30 Saturday morning stating that my appointment needed to be cancelled due to staff illness.  Reprieve!  I'll still need to get my eyes checked, but it was nice to released from the task on this particular day.

I had planned to shop for some clothes so even though my exam was cancelled, I still headed out the door with Eli to make the trip.

We walked past the empty unit next to us, and I said I hoped no one moved in for a long time.  Eli said that maybe the person moving in would become my best friend.  I said that I'll probably never have another best friend in this life, and that the person/people moving in might be three times worse than the tenants on our other side.  In case you haven't noticed, I am sometimes very good at pessimism.

On the tram, we were seated near a man with a stroller.  I said hello to the young boy, and he had absolutely no interest in returning the greeting.  The man - I assume the dad - told him to say hello, and he wasn't having it.  I said, "You don't have to say hello to me.  It's okay to be shy.  I was shy when I was a kid too and didn't like talking to strangers."  I was proud of the way I handled the situation.  I hate it when parents try to force their kids into doing something they don't want to do (give someone a hug, say hello, etc.)  If a child is being rebelliously rude or something, yes, by all means, go ahead and give the kid some direction.  But otherwise, if that child doesn't want to say hello, don't make them do it.

I wished I had a small trinket or toy to give him, just to spread some joy.  I thought about the little plush toys I'd seen while browsing the Ikea website which were only about €2 each.  The idea popped into my head that I needed to start some kind of venture that gave toys to people to provide some smiles and some light.  I'll need to give that notion more thought because it was a loud, insistent whisper, and I've learned not to ignore those when they come.

As we were about to detrain, I said goodbye to the boy and waved.  We were blessed by a small smile and a wave from him, which made my heart happy.

We were early for Eli's appointment, so we sat down on a bench near SpecSavers.  Gino's Gelato was right across from our seating area.  There was a huge mountain of vanilla gelato in one of the bins, and I told Eli I wanted to go and just smush my face into it.  Gelato is sooo good.  Quite pricey though so definitely a treat you have only once in a while.

Around 11, Eli got up to go check in for his appointment, and I wandered down to Penney's to look for jeans.  That took all of about 15 minutes since Penney's does not seem to cater to larger people.  I wandered around Dubray's and Easons (book stores) and then parked myself back on the bench, content to people watch.

A man walked by wearing a Golden State Warriors cap, and another one passed me wearing a Chicago Cubs jacket.  I'm not sure why it always startles me to see someone here with some kind of US-sports-related apparel, but it does.  (As a sidenote:  Someone needs to explain to me why so many people here wear a damned NY Yankees hat.)

Eli texted me to state that they needed to dilate his eyes to get a good reading on one of the tests so his appointment was going to last a bit longer than normal.  I thought about wandering around some more to kill time but wound up staying put.

A few minutes later, a woman sat down next to me.  She had all the outward signs of someone who was upset about something - looked distraught, kept bowing her head with fingers resting on her brow.  Even so, I still would've known.  As as empath, there are many times I can feel a person's emotions.  Feelings radiate from someone almost like an aroma, as strange as that sounds.  I can't smell those emanations in a literal sense, but they're in my face unbidden all the same.

I watched her from the side of my eye, planning to offer a tissue if it appeared she had given in to tears.  I wanted to ask her if she were okay and warred with myself over if that seemed intrusive or not.  In the end, I mentally sent peace and comfort to her instead.

Moments later, she shyly asked if she could ask me a question.  When I consented, she asked if I had a teenaged boy.  I said I didn't but that I'd be glad to listen to whatever was going on to cause her distress.  I said I might not have any advice to give, but sometimes just talking about something could be helpful.

For context, her family is from Libya.  She stated that her teenaged son wanted an iPhone (€1500).  Rather than just giving it to him, she and her husband stated that they wanted the son to start learning Libyan.  An agreement was made that in exchange for the phone, the son would read/learn 20 sentences of Libyan per week.

The son did not follow through on his end of the agreement, so his father wanted to take the phone back.  As you can imagine, this set all kinds of drama in motion.

At some point, the son trotted out that old chestnut:  "I hate you, and you don't love me."  He also said they were forcing him to learn a language he didn't want to learn.

It was obvious that she was quite upset by this situation, and she asked for advice.

I told her that I was basing my response on only one side of the story but that she and her husband had done nothing wrong.  "He entered an agreement that he would study the language in exchange for the phone.  He did not hold up his end of the bargain, and he needs to learn that there are consequences to actions he takes.  If you let him keep the phone even though he didn't follow through, you will be doing him a disservice because he will get eaten alive once he gets out into the world on his own.  You also did not force anything on him.  He agreed to study so he could get the phone.  If he didn't want to learn the language, he shouldn't have agreed to the deal."

Although I can imagine it hurts when your child says he hates you, I advised her not to take it to heart.  "There is probably not a child on this planet who hasn't said that to a parent.  It's usually a form of manipulation to make a parent feel guilty and cave in."

She said they were going to have continued conversations, and I told her "There doesn't need to be a huge amount of drama.  He committed to something, he didn't honor the commitment, and now there will be a consequence."  Perhaps this is simplistic, but I don't think it needs to be more complicated than that.

Eli had joined us somewhere during our talk.  I said something about teenage boys being horrible and got confirmation from Eli that yes, indeed, boys at that age can be terrors.  Although I gave my opinion that I thought teenaged girls were worse.  Boys use a blunt instrument on you; girls use tiny little needles that get under your skin.

We engaged her further on her story, and she talked about how bad things were getting in Libya.  I'm not sure how we got on the topic, but she said when she was younger, her family wanted her to go into medicine.  She wanted to sing or be a creative, but she became a doctor instead.  I said that I hoped she was finding time to sing or something during her off-hours, and she said she was.

Her phone rang as we were talking, so she looked at it with a bit of a grimace.  She showed the screen to us and said, "That's my son calling."  She answered the call and said she'd see him in a minute (he and his father were also in the mall).  As he approached, she looked at us with a small smile and said "Pray for me."  She introduced her son once he arrived, and then they were off.

It's interesting because on Friday, I had the thought that I want to be a lightworker.  I know that sounds woo-woo or something but honestly, it just describes someone who wants to share healing and knowledge and love with the world.  Quite frankly, I've always been a lightworker and just didn't realize it - I feel different from others, am drawn to helping people, am sensitive to energy, am a healer, am connected to nature, and feel like an old soul.  So I've been assigned the role, but I haven't really done a good job in fulfilling my duties.

I want to be driven by light and joy rather than by hate and rage.  I have been so angry for such a long time.  The evil chaos taking place in the world right now is overwhelming to me.  So much unnecessary suffering is being perpetrated by vile creatures cosplaying as human beings, and it makes me sick.  I have every right to be furious and hateful these days, but I also need to be mindful about combatting that with peace.  People are desperate for goodness right now, and I need to do my part in providing some.

I also want to give a shout-out to the Universe for causing Eli's appointment to run longer than it otherwise would.  If he'd gotten out of the exam without delay, I would've missed having that interaction and missed being able to (hopefully) bring comfort to a suffering human.

Considering I was quietly shaken by the whole lightworker idea the day before, it seemed fitting that I had the chance to fulfill my mission less than 24 hours later.

With dilated eyes for one of us and a full heart for the other, we headed to Nando's for lunch.  How can they make plain ol' chicken taste so darned good!  I had a medium peri-peri spice/sauce for my chicken breast, and it had a nice little kick to it.  Eli had ordered some spiced nuts as a starter.  I had a couple of those, and they had some heat that snuck up on you as well.

On the walk back to the tram at Balally, I pointed out the following sign.  I said "Why does the sign for an airfield have a cow on it?"

Once we got home, Eli did a little research.  This place is actually a farm.  The house was built in 1830 and was named Airfield Estate a few years later.  I thought perhaps the family name was Airfield but no - it was just a name given to the place.  I read a little more about it and was tickled after learning about two daughters from one of the families who had owned it.  Letitia (1880-1977) and Naomi (1900-1993) were considered eccentric because they enjoyed driving their pre-war cars around and refused to sell the land for development (when their father died, he left most of his money to the women in the family, which was pretty rare for that period).  I was like "They weren't eccentric.  They were just enjoying living their damned lives!"

The estate has various events and activities.  I saw they offer a bat walk once a month, so Eli and I will need to check into that.

Later that day, we had this creature show up on our doorstep.

Apparently, the Universe has put a homing beacon on our house because this is the third cat we've had visit within the past month.  Mid-April, there was Yaya (who got reunited with his family).  About a week after that, another kitty showed up and was eating like she had never been fed before.  She had a microchip, and a local vet was able to track down the owner.  Nope, the kitty always returned home at night so she wasn't a stray.  Her name - get this - is Jill.

This kitty, however, doesn't have a microchip and eats like she's starving.  She will hop up onto the living room windowsill and stare in at us.  When I get up to move to the kitchen to get her food, she tracks me - looks in the door as I pass through the foyer and then jumps onto the kitchen windowsill to stare at me while I get her food ready.

I've posted her photo on a few Facebook lost/found pet sites so if she belongs to someone, I hope they see it and get in touch.

All in all, it was a very good day.