The ‘Poor Me’ Remedy

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

On a dusty shelf of one of two bookcases in my bedroom is a worn three-ring notebook overflowing with random scraps of paper and a notable lack of organization. I’ve been adding to it for many years, usually just shoving additions somewhere near the bottom of what I have come to call my Poor Me Book. It’s origins began from a long-ago conversation with my dad.

I’d been complaining to my father about how impossible I found it to balance the new and unfamiliar pressures of adulthood, marriage, motherhood, and professional pursuit. I was flailing around, sinking a bit more every day. I wasn’t just overwhelmed; I was mad. I’d spent so much time trying to make what I hoped were careful, deliberate decisions—and chaos was the result?

“Well,” my father said. “You might try taking a day off.”

I rolled my eyes. That was the whole problem. As far as I could tell, there were no days off.

“So, think about this,” he said. “Pick one day a month. Circle it in red on your calendar. Warn your family in advance that you would be taking a ‘poor me’ day. Plan on a whole day wallowing in self-pity. Let everyone know they’re on their own for food. Tell the kids to ask their dad to solve the little problems which don’t involve blood. Take yourself out for lunch or a movie or shopping or,” he looked at me thoughtfully, “in your case, probably just visit the library. Spend the whole day feeling sorry for yourself. But here’s the secret. Once you’re done,” he looked directly into my eyes, “that’s IT for the month. No more self-pity till the next poor me day. Not one drop.”

Really? I had a hundred excuses. Who’d feed the baby? There wasn’t enough money in the budget to go to lunch. My life was WAY to hectic to pretend I was on vacation for a day. But eventually desperation overcame my then current reality. And one morning after I’d posted a warning the day before, I picked up my purse, the car keys, my coat, and I walked out. I don’t remember what I did. I might have even just parked my car and dozed. I have no idea. But when I came back, I felt better. Quite a lot better. So the next month I tried it again.

Overtime, one day a month didn’t always work out, but in months when bedlam threatened, I managed to find time now and then to head McDonald’s drive thru and order a root beer float. I was still buried in an avalanche of expectations, but I was learning to set them aside–figuratively at least. After a couple of years of practice, I had discovered that self-soothing was a rejuvenating tactic for emotional survival. By the time I had begun a master’s degree at Westminster College, I regularly looked forward to a couple of hours twice a week when I left work, bought myself a light, portable dinner, and sat in the anonymity of the Admin Building parking lot for a couple of hours all by myself before my classes began—sometimes catching up on assigned reading as I ate. It was astonishingly energizing.

At that point I had been teaching full-time for almost 10 years. Occasionally a student would leave a kind note about how s/he’d enjoyed something we did in class, or maybe I’d mentioned a book I loved and a student let me know there’d been a run-on copies from the school library. I’d read the notes and drop them in the bottom drawer of my desk, reluctant to throw away the small indicators that I might be doing OK in my classroom. On long, frustrating days when it seemed like nothing worked out as I had planned, I’d open the file in which I was shoving those notes and read through them. They reminded me that now and then at least, some students weren’t just happy to be in class–they were actually learning something. And so began the natural evolution from my poor me days to my Poor Me Book.

As I was liberating the dust from those overloaded bookshelves and stumbled upon my Poor Me Book this week, I was seduced into spending a stolen hour reading through many the faded notes. It was surprising how often the face of a student I’d had more than twenty or so years ago popped up unbidden in my memory. Who could have imaged the significance that a penciled message with a couple of misspelled words would someday hold? Most of those students probably do not remember me at all and certainly don’t remember the kind words they’d scratched on a torn-out half page of notebook paper which they left on my desk.

I’m getting older. I suspect when I die, my kids will throw the whole mess out. Till then, I find deep reassurance in the short messages and letters left behind from the no-longer-young-people I may not have seen for years but who live in my heart. They bring comfort in a time when I am daily reminded of the scarcity of peace.