this time of year is a flurry of mixed emotions for me and has been for a couple of years now. most people (moms, i mean) i think get kinda excited about the whole prospect of "back to school"--maybe sad the summer is over, but a bit charged by either their renewed daytime freedom or getting back to a schedule that really provides a nice routine. that or its the school supply shopping, if you're an office product fiend like me.
and sure, i have those feelings too. but sadly for me, the past couple of years its all been veiled in this dread i feel about just the need to go back up to the school, after an extended period of reprieve, and potentially run into the person in my life who, thus far, i have come the closest to "hating".
gulp. yes i know HATE is a horrid thing, something we are not, either ethically or spiritually or religiously, supposed to do. and the reality is, i dont really hate her. but she is as close as i have come to that emotion-- and even running into her makes me sick/palpitate/dread the whole prospect of that potential..its just soooo uncomfortable.
if you know me well, you may know what happened and who this is. but the specifics really don't matter. its really the concept of what she did--something unethical---that is the basis of what im talking about.
so let me build the framework for you: just think about something that could happen that is not only unethical, but THE MOST PAINFUL thing you have ever experienced. and not entirely, but partly at the hand of someone who was actively trying to be your friend, and actively trying to "throw you off track", deceiving you behind your back, knowing full well it would hurt you and it was wrong. lets go with that.
well, lies never, ever, go completely undetected, do they. and so it was, i figured her out.
so now you have a situation where, once the cover was blown, you confront her and she is not even sorry. in fact, she has told you, on a prior occasion, she has done this before (and since its been found that she has a pattern of this). now, you cannot even LOOK at this person anymore, and while you are trying to heal, and put the past behind you and put your life back together, she is actively trying to let people know that YOU are evil and crazy and telling lies about her to mutual friends (when you are only trying to explain to people who dont get why suddenly, the big group cant be "one big happy family" like usual)--and people are acting weird around you. how lovely.
but worst of all, most everybody, even if they know the truth, they dont care. if they are friends with both of you, they are just acting like nothing is different, tho now 2 of their mutual friends are at war. and despite the fact that you (aka ME) did nothing wrong, and, in fact, what SHE did is so abominable...they stay great friends with her. this left me feeling like *I* had to choose..if i could not be around her, *I* had to be alone, sit alone, not do certain things as a group anymore--be the one on the outside, giving up what i had known and what was previously my social security, so to speak. all while watching her: she kept on living as if nothing had changed. she didnt appear to suffer at all--shit, she wasnt even SORRY. it was like the most amazing insult to injury.
BUT I DIDNT DO ANYTHING!! ITS NOT FAIR!!!!!!!!! i have felt like screaming that a gazillion times, and i actually did sob that into a pillow that first year, that first back-to-school day.
but in terms of how people act, i have come to realize over the past years, and as a vivid reminder the past few months, that there isnt karma like i had hoped. yep...i know its silly, but i still want to believe that if you do good deeds, it comes back to you, and when you do bad, it has the same potential. superstitious? maybe. childish? probably. but its what keeps me on the straight and narrow (for the most part, wink wink!). so i always (and im embarrassed to admit it) hope that her evil -- that esp since she isnt even sorry, and tried to hurt me in retaliation for being exposed at all, that she would somehow have to pay for it. but it seems that even when people do horrendous things, their friends seem to turn the other way. "she didnt do it to me", "i wasnt involved, i shouldnt judge"--etc etc. they just ignore it, and they just go on, nothing changed, since wtf--its none of my business. yeah, well--not now, not yet. and i hope one day, it never will be, since they may think differently when it happens to them. in fact, someone once told me if somebody who does wrong doesnt have serious repercussion enuf to change, they wont change (actually, the quote was, "dont just cut, cut and GUT--they wont forget it"--yikes, but you get the point). people just keep on doing what theyre doing, if they can get away with it, and there isnt a painful
as the years have gone by, it has gotten way better, but she never goes away. she is so often... there--at every school function, in fact. and its not at all like how one SHOULD be when you know you have really done something horrendous and embarrassing to another, when in their presence. shit--lay low, be a fly on the wall, do your own thing. but NOOO--she has to be loud, attention-seeking and "out there". one time recently she was standing with her (one) friend and pointing at me and whispering. childish? yes. still painful? admittedly, yes. a good friend of mine who watched this whole story unfold, stood by me once it broke and my world fell apart, and was the only one to refuse to socialize with her after all this, she has seen how its been (and what pissed me WAY off one time, was the evil HO and her sister had the nerve to call my steadfast friend a b** at Christmastime one year when they were all picking their kids up from childcare--so my friend has sadly been the brunt of things too).
for a long time, in fact, i daydreamed of her verbally attacking me in person as she did to my friend, and as she did behind my back (and it always got back to me) and to this day, as she still contends she never did anything (tho, you will have to trust me and my body of evidence on this) that she did. she is just that psycho as she has CONVINCED herself over the years that s.he did nothing (lie to yourself long enuf, i think you are bound to believe it). but that time never came, and its probably for the best that it never did (although sometimes i felt like it just might make me release some unsaid words--tho i guess thats naive).
and so i go on. and for the most part, its all ok....until a school play, or back to school nite, or a field trip we both happen to chaperone comes along. and then...its like im preparing for the fight of my life again. it just sucks, since i dread this time of year. it sucks to have an enemy you never wanted to have, to have a person you *almost* hate..it sucks.
hopefully, as the years go on, it will get better. it has, i know that.
or better yet--maybe that "FOR SALE" sign i keep praying for will show up in her yard.
