Persistent Dynamics

“I thought everyone played logic games on Friday night,” Lorie shrugged her shoulders with a smirk as she explained her personal journey to becoming an aerospace engineer. All six of the interns sitting around the conference table snickered with knowing glances when Ruby’s boss, Lorie, made this quip. What is a logic game, Ruby wondered. These interns are in high school...so how long has Lorie been playing them on Friday nights? 

Their hour with the interns ended. Ruby and Lorie passed the next crew of company leaders as they walked out of the conference room. Lorie was visibly giddy and going on about how much fun it was to talk to the interns. 

They walked into the building’s cafe and joined up with Carla, from their team. It was Carla along with Ruby that had organized the intern discussion.  In Lorie’s words, the two of them were bringing more “warmth” to the team. 

“I wish I had known you guys when we were younger! We would have been such good friends in high school.” She said to Ruby and Carla with bright eyes and a big smile.

“Nope,” said Carla sharply. “I doubt that.” She and Ruby shook their heads and Carla let a hyperbolic snort-laugh slip out. “Lorie, I have a feeling you were much more grounded, much nicer, and you would not have hung out with me when I was younger. What you see today, in other words, is not what you would have seen back then.”

“Lorie, I don’t even know what a logic game is,” Ruby confessed. She watched as Lorie laughed, seemingly not believing her. “No, really, what is a logic game?” 

“Seriously? It’s just anything that gives your brain a puzzle to figure out. Like traffic jam, that little game where you have to figure out how to reorient the cars to get the ice cream truck out. I loved that game when I was younger. I love it now.”

Carla and Ruby then shared their knowing glances. They had bonded quickly at work and realized they both grew up in the midwest-cum-south, were exposed to alcohol way too young, and learned about sex by trying to be the cool girls who did it first. No logic games were entertaining them on Friday nights back then. Fortunately, those many years of being insecure adolescent girls had given way to adulthood and emotional intelligence. But for Ruby, the memories of her past behaviors nagged at her. 

Over the years, Ruby replayed the interactions she had with girls that ignited her jealousy and received her bratty fury. She replayed being very publicly excluded from parties and how she embarrassingly responded with calls to the host to request her inclusion. In therapy, she processed the curse of puberty arriving late, leaving her with years of observing girls growing hips and breasts and attracting boys as she slogged through high school with child-sized shoes and training bras. 

“At least once a day I wonder how I am here among all these rocket scientists,” Carla said as they headed back to their desks after lunch. Carla had broken her ankle and was moving along with a scooter-assist, her knee propped up. The building was at least ½ a mile from east to west and she couldn’t put weight on her foot for at least three weeks. 

“Just the other day, I actually heard Deland make a disparaging comment about the sales team being a band of jocks and frat boys,” Ruby paused and looked around. No one else from their team was back at their desks yet. “I hate seeing evidence of people hanging onto the past. It makes it hard for me to let go of the way I acted. I know some of those sales guys and they are great guys, they are also smart and they are just as important here as these engineers.” They stopped at their desks. “Do you know I was such a shitty kid, I would have made fun of you for this,” Ruby nodded towards Carla’s scooter. “I would have pointed and laughed and called you ‘cripple’ behind your back.”

“You bitch!” Carla exclaimed with a smile on her face. “I would have made fun of those pants you’re wearing, MC Hammer.” She started laughing. 

Ruby looked down at her pants that ballooned out from her hips to her ankles. They did look like hammer pants. They were an impulse purchase when she found out she was pregnant and needed some good coverup clothes.The sales clerk had convinced her they were in fashion and she had even been complimented on them by a millennial! She burst into tears.

“I’m twelve weeks pregnant.” 

Carla’s face shifted from amusement to shock. She grabbed Ruby and gave her a hug. “Oh honey! I’m sorry, I’m just teasing!” Carla had been a young mother; she had her baby when she was nineteen. Ruby was thirty-seven and had spent the last five years enduring miscarriages and swirling in self-talk. 

“I’m having a girl,” she said as she gasped for air between cries. “I just keep thinking about what a bully I was to other girls and how they must feel now and how there are these women in the world that hate me. Hate me! Hate. Me. And now I’ve got a baby in my belly and she’s feeling all that hate too and I caused it!” Ruby’s tears rushed down and she wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Gross,” she quietly whined.

“Aw honey, they probably are not even thinking about it anymore.” Carla had such a nurturing tone it made Ruby cry even harder. 

“You don’t know that! In their hearts, they know how awful I am and...and...the way I was...is just so...un...un...unforgivable. I’m not even a person worth forgiving to them. I know because I think about the older girls who bullied me when I was young, too. I think they are probably awful people today and have raised awful kids who are bullies.” At this, Ruby felt a small tug in her heart that allowed for some of what she was saying to be untrue. 

“Oh honey,” Carla said again. Ruby was flooded with racing thoughts and indignation. “Let’s go sit outside.” Carla turned her scooter back towards the windows, “follow me, Hammer” she said as she scooted toward the door. 

They sat outside below a shade tree on a grassy hill. Carla was silent while Ruby cried a little longer. Carla smiled and waved to the looky-loos, motioning them to keep on moving and not come over to talk. 

“You know you’re super-charged with hormones, right?” Carla finally asked Ruby.

“Yes,” she sucked in a staccato breath. “But it’s all true. Even if I am emotional. It’s still all true.” 

“Everyone is doing the best they can. And you were too, when you were young. You were doing the best you could. If those girls are hanging onto the past or to hate for you, that’s their choice as an adult. You need to forgive yourself, Rubes. You can’t know if the baby is feeling hate from them. But you can know she’s feeling shame from you. She needs to feel love from you. Tell her all about it, tell her what was going on and why you acted that way. Tell her how to respond if someone treats her like that or if she sees someone bullying anyone. This is how you move through it. Eventually, honey, your mind clues into what is important and these regrets, they dissipate.” 

“I hate those sayings, like ‘everyone is doing the best they can,’” said Ruby. She was lying back now against the hillside, covering her face with her arms. “It’s not true, they are not. A lot of people are choosing to not do the best they can.” 

“And, that may actually be the best they can do at that moment. The way you think about it is also a choice.” 

“Sometimes I want to call up everyone stuck in my memory and apologize. But then I ask myself, is that just another egotistical-bullyish act to make them confront something just because I need it?” 

“Well, ok. Who would you call?” Carla shifted and laid down beside Ruby.

“I’d call Mary Brady and tell her that I was just so jealous of how pretty she was. She had a beautiful feminine body and gorgeous hair. The love of my life was attracted to her and I was so jealous.” 

“Who else?”

“I’d call Gwen Peterson and tell her I was so sorry that I treated her like shit. Again, the same love of my life kissed her one night. I got really drunk another night and yelled at her in front of a group of seniors.”

“That sounds like an awful scene,” Carla responded. “What else?”

“I’d call Chelsea Santis and tell her I’m sorry about being such a crappy neighbor and classmate. I’d ask her about her family today, her kids, her husband, her brother, her mom. I would share with her that my mom, too, turns out, is an alcoholic. I’d apologize for trying to force her to invite me to her party.”

“Ah, yes. So many of us in the AA family,” Carla let out a sigh. “Anyone else?” 

“Maybe Ben Aspenberry. I also tried to make him invite me to a party. Emily Sutherland, for trying to make her invite me to a party. Sara Smith for fueling a rivalry with her about that same love of my life! Lord!” She felt a bolt of shame about her patterns and about feeling such deep love at age fifteen. “I don’t even remember the things I did exactly that made them not want me at their parties. But I remember being the only kid in the class that wasn’t invited. I was that awful!” 

Carla patted Ruby on the head. “Unlikely, gem. You can’t trust your memory completely. You might have not known about other excluded kids or you just don’t remember it right.”

“Perhaps, so. Of course now I can see how they were all unique and I wanted so badly to be someone special and included.”

“There you go,” Carla said. They laid there for a few minutes more in silence.

“The funny thing is, I don’t even like parties that much. I’m much happier staying home and reading. I get so anxious before going and I covet my alone time so much more,” said Ruby. 

“Wisdom grows out of self-reflection and self-awareness. So congratulations on learning more about yourself. Just be careful that you don’t spend too much time with regret or comparison. Regret doesn’t make you a better person--you gotta watch out for that brain trick.” Carla sat up and put her hand on her scooter. “We should get back, we have the team meeting with the unique and special engineers in five minutes.”

Ruby removed her arms and put her hands on her belly. “Little baby girl,” she said, “you are unique and special and included.” 

“That’s it. Now, come on, Hammer.”