Wednesday, February 2, 2000
Jared sees me writing letters to Denmark and then waiting for the mailman, hoping there is mail. Jared said he was going to set up an email account for me so I wouldn’t have to wait for the mailman. I told Jared it was sweet of him, but I didn’t know how to use a computer and would never use email.
Jared set me up with an email account anyway. Then he told me to include the email address when I wrote letters. I didn’t think anyone would respond. Jared checked my email and told me I had emails from Denmark. I was surprised to see family and friends were using this new way to communicate!
Jared tried to show me how to turn on the computer and then open my emails. He had written every step. 1. Turn on the computer and so on. I was scared to follow the directions. I would wait for Jared to come home from school so he could help me with it.
One day in particular, I was anxious to see if family in Denmark had responded to one of my emails. When Jared got home from school, he asked why I had not just followed the directions he had left by the computer. He jokingly asked if I was afraid the computer was going to blow up.
Not knowing I had C-PTSD, I was afraid it would blow up!
The next day, I tried to access my emails on my own. I accidentally put in Hotmale, instead of Hotmail. All these hot males came up! I was all freaked out! I was sure the computer was going to blow up, and we were all going to die! When I finally calmed down, I figured out what I had done wrong, and I slowly started to get more comfortable using the computer.
When I was in Denmark visiting with my farmor and my dad, I asked them about my uncle Sonny. My dad said I didn’t need to have any contact with him. My grandmother was afraid to give me any information about him because she was afraid my dad would get mad at her.
I had seen Sonny in pictures and had hoped to meet him one day. I guess I should just be grateful I had contact with my farmor.
My grandmother’s neighbor had my email address in case anything should ever happen to her; he would be able to contact me.
I was writing some emails when an email from my farmor’s neighbor popped up. It was a picture of my grandmother. I could see that this picture was also sent to someone named Sonny.
I copied Sonny’s email address and sent him an email asking if he was my uncle. My heart was pounding with excitement at the thought that this could be the uncle I was hoping to get in touch with.
Just as I had hit send, I got an email from Sonny. He had not had a chance to open my email. But it looked like he had received the same email from my farmor’s neighbor, and he had wondered whether I was the Anne-Mette he had hoped to contact.
It was exciting to find out that we had both wondered about each other, and here we were emailing back and forth.
Friday, February 18, 2000
Richard called from his work to tell me that his sister was getting a divorce. He said, “Since she has 4 children, she was worried she would never get married again.” She had asked Richard to give her money so she could get her boobs made bigger.
Richard asked me if he should give her money for the operation. I wanted to ask him if he was stupid. Here we were with a front door that had an open hole and still didn’t have a lock on it, because we couldn’t afford to get it fixed.
Richard always does what he wants with his money. I knew it was no use giving him my opinion, and I didn’t want to get into an argument. I told him it was up to him. Richard then said he would let her know he would not give her money. He said, “I am going to send my sister an email, saying that she has enough to worry about and that he didn’t think now was the time for her to be worrying about her boobs.” I was so relieved to hear that.
Sunday, February 27, 2000
I am still doing my calling during the day. Johny is bored since his siblings are at school. I used to tend for a neighbor who had two boys. One of the boys is the same age as Johny. I have started to watch these two boys again. Now Johny has someone to play with. Since Richard is putting so much money into his retirement, this will give me a little extra money.
Leave a Reply