A final commentary on Sunday

[chochiyo_sama]

Well. 

Another Sunday bites the dust.

All day I felt an obscure sadness--at first i thought I was crabby--but then, slowly, I realized i was sad.  I have no idea WHY I felt sad all day.  It wasn't like an overwhelming wanting-to-sob grief-like sadness.  It was more a forlorn, lonely, feeling-out-of-sync with the world type of sadness.  Kind of a geeky I-don't-fit-anywhere sadness.

A dumb sadness.

To a great extent it was my own fault as I didn't eat anything....all day...until like 7 pm when I ate the rest of my badly devolved dessert--it tasted okay, but looked like complete shit--and a couple of buns with tuna salad.  I wasn't sure about the tuna salad--it's been in there a while--but it is 1 am now, and I haven't died yet, so I must be okay.  I KNOW that when I don't eat I begin to feel sad and depressed, but that knowledge doesn't help when I just do not feel like eating. 

I think maybe my dreams of last night set the mood for my melancholia of today.  I dreamed about Judy Lewis--I dreamed I was at some family event, and she happened to show up.  She was with other people I knew, but I don't remember who they were.  She was interacting with everyone and everyone was treating her well--and I kept avoiding her and not talking to her, making me look like the bitch.

In the dream she kinda shadowed me around--wanting to force me to acknowledge her and communicate with her.  And I kept stubbornly avoiding her like the plague.

Finally she came up behind me, sniveling like she does in real life when she feels offended, and demanded to know why I was "mad" at her.

I said something along the lines of "I'm not mad at you.  I just cannot be your friend any more."

(Of course this was a lie as I was and am mad at her--but in a very weak-sister way.  I'm not mad enough to bitch about her to our mutual friends or plot her demise or even write "Judy sucks" on a billboard.  I just don't ever want to have to deal with her again.  Ever.)

Then she was all boo hoo hoo.....and I was all *SIGH* just let me escape this bullshit.

I think I tried to explain to her how she betrayed me and continually cut me down and stabbed me in the back--but of course, like in real life, she is oblivious to the effects anything she does or says have on anyone else.  To her it is all self-preservation/self-promotion.  She just assumes that it's totally natural and acceptable to plant her boot heel firmly on someone else's face and use it as a stepping stone to get one inch higher than she was before.

How do you explain to someone who doesn't get it that this is wrong? 

I stepped up to the plate for her over and over and over again.  Year after year after year.  And did she step up for me?  Even once?  NOPE.  That, I could handle.  I understand that she is fearful and that she isn't aggressive (at least not aggressive towards authority figures--she has no difficulty bullying the kids).  It's the fact that she started downplaying the shit that I went through--as if it wasn't so bad the way  Brett Joyce treated me.  It's the fact that she began to contradict me when I talked to others about the way Brett Joyce systematically set out to destroy me and did everything in his power to make my life difficult, miserable, and discouraging.  

I can still hear her annoying little girl voice (she always used that fucking little baby girl voice when she talked down to me) when she told  me in front of Corky Buckingham, whom I had just told about some thing that Brett had done to me, "Oh, Cheryl, it wasn't THAT bad."

THIS from the person who SOBBED IN HER ROOM ONE WHOLE FUCKING DAY after Brett had said ONE HARSH SENTENCE to her.  ONE.  As I recall, I sent her a bouquet of flowers on that day.  One I really couldn't afford--but which I sent because I had empathy for her and I knew from first hand experience how cruel and mean spirited Brett can be when he sinks his claws into someone.

She KNEW what he did to me.  She KNEW what he said to me.  She KNEW how deeply his disrespect cut into me and how difficult his refusal to support me with the naughty students made my life.  She KNEW how he assigned me new classes but refused to sign off on the book orders--and how the little fucker NEVER EVEN TOLD ME that he'd refused to order my materials--and she KNEW how he viciously attacked me in the hallway in front of the entire student body for making "too many copies"--since I had no books and had to make xeroxes to have materials to teach the kids with.

She KNEW ALL THIS.  And she had so little respect and so little empathy for me that she made it seem like it was all NOTHING.  As if he had bumped into me in the hallway and walked on without saying excuse me.  As if my five full fucking years of unadulterated HELL was all in my imagination.

You know how it is when you have a moment of absolute clarity--and all the worlds and stars and planets and comets and galaxies suddenly align into a new pattern for you?  (Actually they are the same--but YOU suddenly realize that there is a pattern and that it is significant.,)  Well, that's what happened to me when she said that.  I had an epiphany.  I KNEW, suddenly--completely--without question or doubt--that Judy Lewis was NOT my friend.  Judy Lewis had NEVER been my friend.  Judy Lewis was, in fact, an enormous energy vampire that sucked my empathy and compassion and attention from me WHEN SHE NEEDED IT--but when I needed nothing more than a simple acknowledgement of my pain--she couldn't be bothered.  In fact, she had to make me seem like a whiner, an exaggerator, actually, an outright LIAR.

All the times when she had contradicted me in the past--all the times when she'd put me down or INSISTED she was right (when I knew I was right but didn't push it because I don't like to fight or argue) all the times when she was snotty to me that I excused or glossed over because I knew she was stressed or something, all the confidences she'd betrayed, all the times she'd tattled to the principal on me for my little transgressions (like not doing hall duty occasionally)--they clicked through my brain like a thousand dominoes tumbling over onto each other.

I KNEW it.  I KNEW it all.  It was a moment of absolute clarity for me.

And something clicked inside me, and I think it showed in my eyes because a strange expression came over her face when I looked at her.  I'm sure my face registered disbelief, disappointment, and betrayal at what she had said--hers certainly registered a big fat GUILT look followed immediately by her "snitty" I-Don't-Care look.

And it was at that moment that the key to my heart clicked, and she was ejected from my heart and the door is locked, bolted, and barred against her forever.  She is never coming back in. 

She has tried several times since then to worm her way back into my life, but I will not allow it.  I delete her emails.  I avoid places where I know she will be.  I do not attend functions held by our mutual friends.  I feel bad about not seeing them--but I will not force them to choose between me and her.

My friends know why I don't attend.  They know I do not expect them nor do I want them to shun her.

I do not wish her any ill.  I do not wish to harm her or make her miserable.

I just do not want any part of her.  Ever again.  EVER.

I guess I am still angry--very angry--at her.  But I think if I scraped away the anger, what would be underneath it is hurt--hurt at the betrayal from someone I thought was a friend.  Someone I trusted who proved she could not be trusted. 

I think what caused the dream was the invitation to Doug Hakomaki's retirement party.  I KNOW she'll be there.  I loved Doug--but there is no way I will go to his retirement party and be forced to speak to her.

And I am sure that the dream caused this feeling of sadness and unhappiness.

Such was my Sunday.

Bleah.

 

 

On a happy note, I kicked Peter's ass HORRIBLY in two of three games.  In the first game, I was able to put down a 99 point word.  One shot.

Bwa ha ha.

I almost feel guilty for beating him so horribly.  ALMOST.

But, he knows I love him to pieces--heh heh--he would be insulted if I didn't give the game my full effort.  He did win the second game--but by a MUCH closer margin than I beat him by.

Poor Peter.

Heh heh heh

 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

You're almost through. You had a long life in that school, with those people. It was like family. And when you quit and got a job elsewhere, it was like a death. You've gone through the denial and the anger. Now you're going through the mourning. And the saddest thing is that no one has died. They are all alive and there and you *could* see them. But you know it will be painful and open old wounds. (You know me, I'd open my mouth and rip Judy a new one in front of everyone and squish her like a bug.)

You're moving on. You're healing.

Send Doug a card. Take him to lunch, just the two of you. Don't feel bad for not attending the party.

About time you started taking care of number 1 and thinking of yourself first. God, knows no one else is going to.

That's my new philosophy. Along with using "Told you so!" whenever I can.

g.

P.S. K says you need to eat more fried chicken.