I M Perfect lady

Tag: Mail

  • Keep Play Alive!

    I discovered a great truth about myself and my feelings, that I want to own what I feel and it feels worse to have someone try and get me out before my time, I want feel as long as I want to feel.

    My mail route has been a five day a week job, and I found out on Thursday, that it was switching to a six day a week one week and then a five day the next, rotating every other Saturday off.

    I sulked, and I pouted, and felt deep disappointment in losing a day off, and when my boss tried to placate me with false hopes, it made me feel worse not better.

    It then came to me, it is much better to let a person sit in her pity puddle for as long as she likes and when she comes out on her own, she will be ready to face the life change that put her there.

    I felt cheated and manipulated and cajoled to be feeling a false emotion for her sake, but not mine. Me, I wanted to sit and grieve over my loss of a day off.

    And she felt responsible for my sadness and then tried to feed me false hopes of it being an error that perhaps it will change, etc.

    I told her, please just let me get accustomed to my loss, let me be here, I will adjust and acclimate myself in time. I am okay being sad.

    It began to bother me more that they couldn’t accept me being upset. I can now see it is best to honor the feelings and emotions and not try changing them with words.

    Just let them be.

    I can now see how I have mishandled or perhaps over-handled my daughter’s emotions messing around in them and confusing or mixing them up for my ease.

    I love that we have a right to our emotions and we can express them at our own pace.

    Losing a Saturday every other week does make me sad, it is like losing a play date, a recess or free time…I will have to manipulate the rest of my week to make up this time, perhaps giving up cleaning or washing clothes or cooking…sometimes it takes time to find the silver lining.

    Instead of giving up playtime, I will give up more domestic chores…every other week.

    Whatever it takes to keep Play alive!!!

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  • Treat the Mail Lady

    After 7 months of delivering mail, I have come to conclusion I will never be 100% accurate, for no matter how hard I try, there always seems to be letters that cling to each other and one gets filed wrong into the wrong box or I get names and addresses transposed and there they sit waiting for the owner of the mailbox to discover my ineptness.

    Of course my errors always land in mailboxes of perfect people, people who have never made an error in their lives, and instead of just putting my error back in the box and gently put up the flag for me to pick it up, they hand deliver it back to the Post Office so my boss can see.

    It is like I have a club of tattle tellers! For luck would have it, I am a repeat offender to the ones who are not willing to keep it just between us.

    As a mail lady, I can tell you a few things you can do to make the mail lady’s day.

    If I make a mistake, just slip it back in the box and raise the flag, I will pick it up and understand why you didn’t want it.

    When you do get one of my errors, I would appreciate if you didn’t write on the envelope, “Wrong Address” for the real owner will know it has taken a detour along the way.

    Running a mail route is like filing letters but our files are miles apart and when we make a mistake there are people in the files hollering at us. Okay, not all but a few loud mouths.

    And these loud mouths are usually owners of mailboxes whose doors don’t stay shut or are hard to open, have red flags missing and then complain when I don’t pick up their mail, have boxes set too far off the road or tilted too far back that I can’t retrieve their mail easily.

    It seems they take joy in finding my mistakes but overlook their own.

    However, there are some delightful people who are kind and have the patience and understanding and just slip my mistake back in the box in silence…and even put notes reminding me that their mail is on hold.

    Most are good caretakers of their boxes and actually worry about making it easier on me…and are very empathetic.

    I deliver a fair amount of packages to a woman who lives alone on a farm overlooking a lake. She has gardens and many bird feeders and a real tiny sauna, a few barns and a smile with bright eyes. Her face is unlike most, for scars of a long ago injury or illness took most of it, yet she is always apologetic for the packages I carry. I would bring her the moon…and feel no strain…I don’t make mistakes on her mail, but feel she would be kind if I did.

    There is a talkative positive older woman who paints and is willing to show me her latest picture, she rides an exercise bike, gets her hair done on Tuesdays, for Wednesday is senior lunch day and gives me oranges and cookies…she too would pooh away my mistakes and just put them back in the box…life is too short for grumpiness. She was sick a few weeks ago, and she didn’t like the way sick felt in her…she gave me glowing reports of the kind treatment she received at the Doctors office…she only meets kindness.

    The lonely folks wait for me, idling along; waiting to say a word or two…our conversations have one-day gaps, we learn about each other bit by bit, stretched out over months of daily one minute visits…slowly we are becoming friends.

    I no longer believe there will come a time of no mistakes, nor do I believe I will become friends with folks who are forever looking at me to fail…and perhaps I am making them happy by giving them something to complain about.

    What is so odd is that the ones with a legitimate complaint have spirits of goodwill…and the others find a misfiled letter a cause to complain.

    It is peculiar to ride along the same route day after day, seeing the same people and learning who they are by how they respond to life and life’s mistakes…you can tell a lot about people by how they treat the mail lady.

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  • Act of Forgetting.

    I was greeted at a mailbox yesterday by a bundled up smiling lady, her eyes bright and her cheeks rosy, I handed her her mail, commenting on one letter.

    It was a card from her to someone, and I had brought it back for her.

    She had just put the person’s name, but no address or stamp. I said we didn’t know where her friend lived and that usually we needed a stamp.

    She chuckled with delight at herself, finding her error funny and looked at me shyly.

    I told her we brought it back for her to finish; she smiled and said, “thank you, I am glad you did,” clutching it to her chest.

    I explained to her that we didn’t know her friend or where she lived, but that if she could help us out with a few more hints, we would deliver it….

    I left her standing there, arms full of mail, smiling at herself…”keep warm”, she said as I drove away…”I will, and you too” I hollered back.

    Her energy and spirit rode along with me in my jeep, amidst the boxes and packages, bringing a smile to my face every now and then…picturing her delight when she seen her half written card and her eyes as they met mine.

    A kindred spirit.

    For I recalled my daughter’s comment to me that morning, “Mother you left all the cupboard doors open.”

    I smiled that same smile seeing the evidence of me making a cup of tea, caught in the act of forgetting.

  • GPS on the Mail Route.

    There is nothing like seeing your job from the back seat of a dusty van, slowly making its way along the route, time flying by while each mail box slowly crawled on by.

    He did well for his first time out and he is very lucky to have a seasoned mail lady as a back seat driver.

    While my day seemed endlessly long, my patience stretched to its limit, I knew how much my presence meant to him.

    When I made my maiden voyage I was left alone, to discover when I missed a road, when the mail in my hand seems to be from a foreign land, a package unfound…a house lost, another unmarked mailbox, oh, how I would have loved to have someone in the backseat with all the answers!

    My first day ended with tears shed, nerves shot and ready to quit… but the regular mailman left me in charge for two weeks, so I no choice but to go back and try again another day. By the end of the first week, I was comfortable on the route.

    He was very lucky to have me along choking on dust, sitting among the boxes, and trays of mail, being flung back into the seat or flung forward as he got used to using his left foot on the pedals, a live GPS on the mail route.

  • The Short End of the Stick!

    Each day when I am at work, I silently thank my co-worker for wanting the larger route, the one with fewer dirt roads, but much more mail, for every day my route appears to be easy.

    No matter what day of the week, when we both arrive, I have less, which doesn’t allow me to utter one complaint, for each day He has it harder than I.

    It is amazing that this simple fact that his lot in life is harder than mine leaves me no room to complain, which also sets the tone for the day.

    How lucky am I to have this little route.

    What an awesome way to transition back into the working world, feeling like you are the lucky one each day.

    This lightness carries me through the day, no matter what I have to deliver, he has more, no matter how long it took me it will take him longer.

    He willingly gave up this route for a variety of reasons, yet now he is looking back at with different eyes.

    You truly don’t know what you got til its gone… but I am fully aware of what I have and each and every day and even a few times a day I give thanks to the Gods that be, that something within him wanted him to leave this route to me.

    I am thrilled to be left holding the short end of the stick!

  • The Lady and Her Jeep

    I was shocked to learn that I had joined a new group, a group of which I knew nothing about, and still don’t, but feel I will learn as I go.

    As I drove my Jeep across the Bridge in town, an oncoming Jeep spotted me and gave me a friendly wave and smile…I waved back, pondering who was that?

    My second wave was as I was traveling along the highway, a white Wrangler waved and then it dawned on me, all Jeep Wrangler drivers wave at each other.

    Sure enough a dark green one spotted me and he too waved, then more and more.  It is the oddest thing and funny to be part of a group that I didn’t even know about. 

    I wave back, but don’t have a clue what the agenda is of this group…what have I joined?

    I wonder if my yellow light on top or the fact that I drive from the right puts me in a special sub group within the group, if delivering mail is a bonus or a demerit?

    What is the common bond between the Wrangler owners, what character trait or lifestyle would be a common thread?  Do I really fit in?

    It’s an unexpected feature and one that I am not sure how to use or express.

    Perhaps I own a Jeep but I don’t match the persona one usually has when owning one, I landed here by accident. 

    Yet my jeep will look as it has had a lot of fun mud bogging when I return some days off the route.

    It feels like I joined an adventure group unbeknownst to me…and what is scary is this mail route will become an adventure depending up on the weather.

    Again maybe everyone knows but me that by owning a Jeep Wrangler my life will take me on exciting rides.

    Wow…no wonder they smile and wave…’hope you are tough enough to ride’ and I do too! 

    We will see if my spirit matches where this jeep will take me, do I have the right stuff? 

    I am thinking the confident get a jeep, and in my case I need the jeep to be confident…confident I can make it through the rain, sleet and snow and dark of night to deliver the mail. 

    Maybe this group isn’t for the faint of heart…but will make the faint of heart strong. 

    I guess this group is for me. 

    I will rebuild the confidence I lost, the strength that seems fleeting at times, the endurance against all kinds. 

    The Lady and her Jeep.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • A Party of Like Minds

    As a Mail Lady during a political season we deliver lots of campaign messages or ideas from individuals trying to win your vote, and as I see it, they are all negative. 

    They don’t tell you what they themselves are doing, but what the other person does or will do, negatively. 

    It seems like hate mail of the other candidate and they are trying to gather a team of haters. 

    A few weeks back I also saw picketers in front of two churches on a beautiful fall afternoon, seemingly nice friendly peaceful folk, holding up hateful signs.

    What juxtaposition between the hateful signs, the church, a splendid fall day. 

    Will a hateful sign really make you change your mind? 

    How is holding up a sign at what we are supposedly doing wrong helping anyone, isn’t that actively sitting in judgment?

     Looking outward at what we are doing wrong, instead of sitting in quiet repose of self. 

    You can literally feel the negative energy that flows off the paper and into your awareness. 

    The only thing you will gather with those signs and political ads are more of the like-minded folk, like a magnet sweeping humanity to find negative energy. 

    If this is true, imagine what would happen with compassionate signs.

    It is interesting what we are drawn to whether it be negative energy or positive, healing or hurtful, abusive or loving, even without signs we seem to find our own party.

    A party of like minds.

     

     

  • Driving on the Right Side

    To see my route from a few feet higher and a foot to the right was a whole new view.

     

    I seen the inside of mailboxes I have never seen, for their bottoms were even to the car top, and now I can look right in.  I will even be able to make sure all out going mail is out going!

     

    I feel like I have grown up and that I can now do this job like it is meant to be done, instead of with a handicap of being too short.

     

    Instead of everything being a struggle and barely in reach, it is right there.  Now I am noticing the really low ones, that were low for the car, are almost out of reach, but they are an exception.

     

    The relaxed nature of my car’s steering wheel allowed for a few degrees in each direction before it would follow, in the jeep, it responds immediately.  It kept me on my toes, no more looking for packages while driving!

     

    I only went to the passenger side a few times looking to drive from there, a reflex that has to be broken.

     

    The shifting will take some time, for the wipers came on a few times and I didn’t move an inch, but was surprised to see the washer fluid squirting up!

    Inside the jeep will also take time for me to get used to, as I find a sequence of how things will flow, when and where lunch will be served, where the stamps fit best, where out going mail basket fits best, where the small packages are easily reached, where the pen and small change will be kept, like moving into a new office space!

     

    And believe it or not, my right hip and leg were sore from all the leg work it now had to do, no more just kicking back while the left leg did it all.  Only one time, did I get in and put my right leg out to straighten me in the seat, and gun the motor, for I had stepped on the gas, and looked around for the ‘racing’ car…and it was Me.

     

    It is amazing what our bodies get used to and how creatures of habit we become.

     

    This just shows me how unaware you can become when you are in the same routine, until you change something that makes you do things differently.

     

    In a short while I will feel normal driving on the right side.

     

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