Dr. Jedidiah’s Diary
Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves
traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single
father who lost phis wife to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his
old perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met
hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the
world. Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office
have given him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter
groups or being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue
that has left him with some food for thoughts in life….or a fodder to justify
his own mistakes in the past.
Episode # 61. Judith
I had always thought a police officer was supposed to be
a role model regarding morals and ethics for laymen out there in the street. Quite
luckily, I hadn’t gone through bitter moments of facing or dealing with thrawn
or clueless cops most of my life until I got a speeding ticket from
this traffic officer. Her name was Judith Parker. When I rolled down the window,
she was standing there, slowly pulling down her shades to look at me and said “Mr.
You know why I pulled you over. You were speeding here at 25 mph school zone.”
I was dumbfounded at her words, because I knew that I was only 3 miles over the
speed limit. Even before I tried to make any excuses, her eyes were telling me there
was no such thing as machinating stories such as going to an emergency room for
my family in accident or I was being late to my flight. Giving me the ticket,
Judith said “Not a single person passed me without a ticket even for one mile
over. No boondoggle allowed.”
After our ‘not-so-pleasant’ kind of encounter, Judith and
I had happened to come across several times at my son’s school events, such as parent-teacher
conference, talent show, parent-counselor meetings for kids’ college
application, and so forth. The police officer, Judith, who gave me the ticket
for my overspeed of 3 miles, was the mother of my son’s classmate’s. When I was
hurrying to the auditorium where students’ talent show was taking place, I recognized
her in the hallway, so did she. She said “Whoa…you’re speeding again! You’re not
only a fast driver!” I was a little embarrassed by her awkward innuendo –
which seemed more like a taunt - and greeted her back with a sardonic
smile. She was willingly letting me sit by her seat without asking me if I wanted
to. When her daughter was on the stage, impersonating Mariah Carey, I had to
bite my lips and try hard to think about the saddest episode in my life just to
hold the burst of laughing. Judith saw me trying not to laugh and said “Just
laugh when you need to, Mr. J. Who could not crack up watching my girl imitating
Mariah’s dolphin whistle like that?” I got instantly disarmed with sudden
warm-and-fuzzies, laughing out loud. We kept our conversation going on
during the talent show and even after the event. When the show was over and the
kids were brought back home, Judith and I went out to her favorite taco place
for dinner that night. She said “Well, a police officer who’s a single mom is always
pinching pennies. I can’t invite you to a fancy eatery.” I liked her
down-to-earth way of life and speaking, which erased the antipathy that I had held
against her as a blunt police officer.
My days with Judith had not always been rosy and happy. Given
the pecuniary strain she was going through, Judith was considering to
move to a place where the cost of living was affordable. By that time, her ex-husband
started to reach out to her, saying that he had been deeply regretting the way
he treated her. He wanted to come around and reunite with Judith, and it seemed
to me that Judith was still reeling from her separation from her ex-hubby. When
I cautiously asked her what made them separate, she looked very hesitant to answer
my question. I felt uncomfortable as well in the long stillness between us that
was obnubilating our minds. Judith broke the silence by saying something
that I could not understand. “You know how much I’m struggling to live this hardscrabble
life with my daughter. I want her to do whatever she wants and be well educated
in a private school, just unlike me. I was deprived of so many good things in
life since my childhood…. and the reason my husband left me was…. Because I
cheated on him. I happened to be too tight with my colleague officer, and my
husband found it out. Now that my husband wants to forgive my mistake and come
back to me, I …..maybe I need to…” I
wanted to finish her sentence, but didn’t. If I stole words from her mouth, she’d
just say she was sorry and left me right away.
Five years have passed, and I still do not perfectly understand
Judith. I thought over and over again about what it is that Judith was so
easily forgetting her own misconduct and coming back to her ex-husband. ‘Did she go back to her husband because of her
financial difficulty? Did she have no confidence at all to start a new life
from scratch in a new place with her daughter and me? Otherwise, falling in love
with someone is no more than an implausible moonshot plan in life?’ I wanted to give her a speeding ticket because
she was way too fast coming and going out of our relationship. Judith was not making
a role model police officer in my mind.
Expressions
1. thrawn:
crooked/ twisted
2. boondoggle: work
or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having
value
3. innuendo: an
allusive or oblique remark or hint, typically a suggestive or disparaging one
4. taunt: a
remark made in order to anger, wound, or provoke someone
5. to crack
up:
to burst into laughter
6. dolphin
whistle: the well-known high notes that American pop singer
Mariah Carey hits in her songs
7. warm-and-fuzzies: a
highly sentimental, reassuring, and comforting emotional response
8. to
pinch pennies: to be extra careful about how much one
spends
9. pecuniary
strain: financial difficulty/hardships
10. to obnubilate: darken,
dim, or cover with or as if with a cloud; obscure
11. hardscrabble: providing
or yielding meagerly in return for much effort; demanding or unrewarding
12. moonshot: If
you refer to an idea or a plan as a moonshot, you mean it is on a scale that is
so large it is almost impossible to achieve.
