Friday, December 02, 2005

Merry Christmas and all that -- I still don't like you

So many movies include the plotline where everyone makes up after an argument, just because it's Christmastime. That is SUCH a crock, if the differences that caused the argument are still there.

I have a friendship that I ended this year. There are two sides to every story, but it all boils down to me feeling like she had taken advantage of me one-too-many times, and that some of the things she said over the years were pretty hurtful to me & Mr. Carly. Grossly insensitive comments about his job being eliminated, and so on.

When I spelled my issues out in an email (yes, I am a total coward when it comes to outright confrontations, and the hints I was dropping steadily just weren't working) I got a lot of venom back in emails from her and her husband. I finally had enough, and finished it with a note saying "please don't contact me anymore." It has been six months and honestly, I'm sorry to sound like a total jerk, but I don't miss her.

Trust me, if my most Christian friend could look me in the eye and say "You know, I've never liked her", that speaks volumes.

She'd been pretty much out of my mind until the other day, when I got an email from her, wherein she announced that she is moving to another state, pretty far from here. Hmmm. Honestly, I felt nothing. I think she deliberately included me, but wanted to seem as though she'd merely sent to everyone in her address book.

Sorry, I'm not playing.

I'm not going to do the "Oh my gosh, you're moving? We have to make up! I'll miss you!" conversation, because, as previously stated, so what, we don't, I won't.

As a symbolic act, I took my copy of her house keys and threw them into a body of water I was admiring yesterday. They've been bugging me, really gnawing at me. I couldn't bring them back to her, because I don't want to see her. I didn't want to send someone else (waaaaaaay cowardly) and mailing someone's KEYS to their HOME is generally not a good idea. Now that I know she's leaving town, I felt no further need to give them back to her. Impulsive? Perhaps. Closure? Hell yeah.

It felt VERY good to watch them slip into the water and disappear with a small but audible "plunk." I just wanted to hug somebody at that moment --it was that much of a relief.

It felt even better to know that I won't come across the keys in a drawer, on my desk, etc. To know that it's very unlikely I'll ever cross paths with her again, since her family does not live in this area. To know that I stood up for myself, to rid myself of a relationship that only caused me unhappiness.

Buh-bye. Happy New Year.

3 comments:

Shamus O'Drunkahan said...

I love the title of this entry. I think I'm going to make up some XMas cards with that exact message, because I have a few people I could send them to.

That's right, I'm talking to YOU, Chad Pennington! Where's my effin super home makeover???

onescrappychick said...

(snorts) I had a wicked deja-vu moment here for a minute. I hope you threw those keys hard.

John said...

I also like the title.

That and I generally agree with your position. I tend to hold grudges. My personal philosophy is somewhere along the lines of "there are 6 billion people in this world, and I don't have the time or paitence to be screwed over 12 billion times." In practice, this tends not to be the case (see my relationship with Haley) but it's a nice idea.

Things will get better... right?

I distinctly remember a day in... maybe February?  I remember the moment, but not what day it was. I was sitting at work thinking about plan...