Always be

Anyhow, I was thinking about the president giving a speech today and how undignified it would be if It happened and there ended up being involuntary neck shits on stage or something.

I got home and it's all still swirling around in my head, how she had to deal with so many awful men in her life and how determined she's been for me to have the option of enforcing every boundary that she didn't know could even exist. My daughter is everything I didn't realize I should be teaching her to be in terms of self worth,confidence, and boundaries, but she ended up like that anyhow.

My aunt has admitted that she stuffed trauma from her childhood into a box. The movie Backrooms was jarring for her because she dreams about that box in a way that the movie would depict it. She's done okay in the world but my girl cousin didn't necessarily get the same abilities I did- a little more eager to please, not quite able to say no. Her daughter is a little more like me because my cousin realized there were important lessons she would have liked to have been taught.

The absolute best was me and B. One time around and our team had nearly 50 to their 10. It would just take a word and we'd get it. At first I was worried about overstaying but the way she went on about how well we did together, worries dissolved. I did make a point to spend time in other rooms, hung out on the deck for a while, but once everyone had gone, B wanted to know my thoughts on some conversations.

For this party, she said she didnt want one even as we were going to parties for her friends. A couple days before graduation, she said she did. I said she could invite people over for immediately after with our family, but that was too soon for something bigger. She declined and decided a friend only one. We had to do it this week, I made an invitation for her to send to people and she just *didn't* until yesterday. She invited 20 people, 10 said they'd come and 2 did.

Not earning Eagle was recently a sad moment for her. Some of the things people said at her friend's court of honor were really damming of how she approached it. She dropped the ball and just quit trying. Life rank is cool, but she can never have more. Her friend being recognized kind of hurt.

Some of her schooling has been like that. She just decided to spend her time on other things and she ended up dropping classes because she neglected them so badly.

As she heads off to work at a summer camp this week, I hope she's put in Situations where she has to take responsibility and follow through. She's been terrible and doing what she says she'll do at home too. She can't keep going about in life like this.

So the new version is condensed, which is great. It leaves out a couple things I would have preferred they keep but not terrible. The person facilitating the class had never taken the old course, he'd only taken half of the beginning part online, and was thrilled to have my help. I didn't get connected with him until just a couple days before so was careful to let him lead but it became apparent that he had no idea what to do so I gently handled a few decisions.

On the day of, there was a youth (always ideal) and her mom presenting the first half of the day. They were great, had well organized slides and knew the material. The only issues were 1) they had to leave after their parts 2) they scheduled the start time an hour later than what it should be for the two part class that we had planned.

After lunch, the facilitator and I got started. There were a few red flags in the days before and all of my worries came true: He was a hot mess.

I know for certain that he was familiar with the materials. We talked on the phone and he knew the topics, but up front, with 15 participants watching, he absolutely choked. Later, he would say "It took me about 7 seconds to realize I prefer to be an administrator for things like this, and not a presenter." During one of the easiest modules, about body language, where the presenter picks an item from a list like pointing vs an open hand to call on someone- showing how gestures change meaning, he stood and stared at the page for a solid 4 minutes, like every memory of having read the page had dissolved. It was a very different thing than being bad at public speaking. Being in front in general, he was confident, affable, coherent, and seemed otherwise totally capable. But when it came time to deliver content.... blue screen. I think a big part was that he had never seen it presented before.

During my first presentation, while the participants were in small discussion groups and I came back to our table for water, he goes "You are fathoms beyond me in presentation skills. It's not just the preparation either. You are so good at this." I didn't take the demure route and explained that not only have I delivered this material dozens of times, but loved it so much that I decided to get a degree about it. Thank you, but also don't try to compare.

After, there were a couple of people who hung around to talk about other events. One woman was so sassy and I just loved her from the start. She's insisting I join her at a promotional event and I'm actually excited. She and the other presenter are buddies and he kept working in how I saved the day and he doesn't know what he was thinking when he planned to do all the presenting himself. As it was, he took my recommendation to cut out a 45 minute section that he was supposed to give about managing discussions. The new material is a little convoluted and we were way behind for time so there was no way to get him comfortable/have me learn it on the fly well enough to present coherently so I said to axe it. I think he was just waiting for me to insist on that. He was so relieved.... which is funny because once again, I encountered a man that has all the makings of being this hard, domineering person. Everything about his career, hobbies, and bearing is intimidating. Except I immediately antagonized him in a way that made him laugh hard, made fun of him in a way that made us suddenly become besties, and by the end of the day, he was willing to tell me about some tender things. So taking my suggestions was no problem at all. It's like this whole other dialect spoken primarily by military, law enforcement, and medical providers. If you indicate that you can handle some shit, then the facade falls and you get to see the real person. Many times, they are people who walk into a room and if no one is obviously in charge, for better or worse, they take charge. I am someone who can obviously take charge, knew more than him, so he was comfortable handing over the reigns even though it was his job. He wanted the thing done well so he wouldn't get in the way of a good plan.