Betrayal

One of the main life themes I have been dealing with lately is the theme of betrayal.
Perhaps it was a sense of prescience that prompted me to blog about Jesus and Judas, and document my thoughts on the possibility Jesus chose Judas to sell him out for some mysterious reason of his own. I do think Jesus rode in to Jerusalem on that terrible day, fully cogniscent of the fact he was on his way to martyrdom, martyr's always choose to be martyrs.

maybe it was luck, or simply preparation meets opportunity that I found and posted this message of Caroline Myss, an author I admire. In her message of the day she writes about the value of those who teach us lessons in life. A caution not to hate, or resent, but to embrace the lesson they bring, and honor them as such, even when they teach you through pain.

Was it my guardian angels that brought my attention to this poem by Robert Frost? Further supporting my belief that we choose our fates, our losses our blessings. Each life experience, whether shameful, or joyful are construed and constructed by our own selves. What a waste of time it is to point fingers at others claiming It's because of YOU I hate my life... insert what ever you want for life, it's all the same ball of wax.

After leaving the hospital, I toyed with the idea of telling my dearest friend the news, but something held me back. I suspected she may also be pregnant. I didn't want to tell a pregnant woman I just nearly died, once again, by the hand of pregnancy.

Besides the last time I told her about one of my miscarriages, it really upset her.
I told her I felt like death was in me. She couldn't understand, with horror she said she'd never heard anyone talk like that before. I should have paid closer attention to her words, but my sorrow was all encompassing. I'm afraid it encompassed her even, from three thousand miles away.

It was true. I felt the slight butterfly kisses deep in my sacral center at conception. I experienced symbolic dreams that explained to me what was happening in my body as it unfolded. During this particular pregnancy, I even felt the heart start up on it's own. A small abdominal echo of my own heart beat. I let my tears just stream down with no shame, and no eyes to see me in a joy that was all my own.

When I felt this one die, I wanted to die. I could feel this tiny being just yank the plug so to speak. With no reason that I could see or fathom. No longer cradling life, I felt I cradled death, and it was a horror for me.

Before my current loss, I day dreamed about visiting her on my upcoming trip and bumping bellies, so to speak. I was thrilled that we would become parents together, after all she's the only other "wife" I know, other than me. Having never had a model of home, family, mom, dad, and baby I was so looking forward to creating my own family and sharing the experience with the girl I've always shared my hopes and dreams and fears with. This time, I listened to my intuition and kept my secret from her. I'm glad I did.

I had been unnerved by her behaviour over the past two years, and upon further reflection, realized her behaviour towards me had never been ideal.

I had pulled away from her, under the impression I had become a thorn in her side. Last September, she called me and was upset that I hadn't called her to tell her I was coming to town. She read about my trip in this blog. Funny I thought, you never leave me any notes telling me you're reading? In fact she never responded to my emails, my blog messages to her, or my phone calls. I could take a hint, I didn't need my nose fucking rubbed into it to get it, or did I? I guess I did.

Well we spent an evening together, talking till dawn. She did seem different from the woman I had known and loved for twenty years, but I also was aware she was dealing with anxiety and probably a host of other problems. I'm really not one to judge too harshly, especially when it comes to other people's coping mechanisms, unless those mechanisms begin to infringe on the welfare and happiness of another.

I was aware of a decided lack of compassion towards me. One I had begrudgingly recognized had been there from the beginning of our relationship as 13 year old girls. However, it was only a hint here and there. A hard edge to her voice, a dismissive comment. A wave of her hand. It could have been something I was just reading in due to my own anxiety.

When I came home, I expected we would retain some kind of correspondence. We had talked about blogging. I was aware she started one. The look on her face told me the contents. It was a mean blog. The look of caution on her husbands face, confirmed it was a blog about me. I knew the one. I had followed it once from a visitors link to my site. It was just begun, it only said one thing, "OOOH I am so full of myself." I remembered thinking the digital image selected as the blogger, looked very much like my friend. I sat in my friends back yard, blinded with the memory of this blog, struggling with the certainty, that it belonged to my friend. I pushed it aside, prefering to think I'm losing it rather than getting it.

I suspected she was visiting my blog on a regular basis. I decided to hide it, not just because of her, but also because I had developed an online stalker. Dealt with now. I think. But I left my art blog accesible for her, just in case. I wanted to always have a way for her to stay in touch with me, and for a while just seeing her footprints was enough for me.

But then came the day I had to just do it. Confront her. I did it through my blog, asked her to speak up or ship out. Either reciprocate with the communication or stop the lurking. Well she exploded. I thought it was interesting that throughout everything I have blogged, shared, turned inside and out, this was the only thing she felt moved to comment on, beyond a once or twice blowing smoke up my ass . I felt like a putz.

She was full of shit. Her explanations were wishy washy, her convictions shaky, the accusations she leveled at me were clear projections of the way she has related to me over the past twenty one years, and not the other way around.

I followed her comments on my blog, to her blog and was in for the shock of my life.
She wrote, on the weekend of my birthday, 2 years ago that she had just ended our friendship.

News to me.

As I read through her comments of self loathing and despair, I noticed she was blaming me (once again) for the fact she is unhappy with where she is in life. She claims she never went to universtity because of me. That made me laugh, in a melancholy sort of way. I haven't lived closer than thousands of miles to her in over twelve years. If she wanted to go to University, she could have done so and recieved three degrees by now.

In one of the flurry of emails that ensued, she called herself the co-star in the drama I call life.
This really struck me as odd. Especially since we have lived so far apart for over half our relationship. I never knew she felt like that. I mean there were indications, indications I brushed aside because they were so absurd.

Indications like her cement like contention that she is a "coat holder" what she means by this is when she goes out, she's the girl guys go to to ask about her pretty friends, and then she ends up holding everyones coats while everyone else gets to dance and mingle.

I have never once seen this scenerio play out, but she claims its true. I personally think its all in her head. But this delusion of hers may be the basis of why she feels the way she does about me. She's got some kind of "Second Fiddle" complex. In astrology, it is considered the house of siblings that determines how we interact with peers throughout our lives. Understanding how to read my birth chart, has been a helpful tool in identifying patterns of behaviour in my life. Mine shows short bursts of deep emotional connection early in life that remain out of reach. I suspect she's got some kind of living under the shadow of her siblings cross to bear.

The Co star to the drama I call life. What a dingdong. My life may be dramatic, but its an adventure, and always has been. My insatiable curiousity about the world, the universe, love, sweeps away my fears of life. Without it, I never would have been led towards the knowledge and experiences I've had that have prolonged my life, added beauty and reason to it. Without my curiousity I never would have found my will.

I can't help but wonder if Pickle had hitched her wagon to her own star, if she wouldn't have that degree she declares she wanted, if she wouldn't be crippled with anxiety and unable to even shelve batteries in a job that she knows is beneath her. If she wouldn't be aware of her beauty and talent and brains, the way I've always been aware of them in her.

I do feel bad for leading her astray, had I known she was looking to me for direction, I would have warned her off. I delight in being a butterfly, riding the current of the wind taking life as it comes. I never had any clear plans of where I wanted to go. I have certain milestones, many of which I've already achieved, but plans? No my way is a way of faith, first in the principle of god, then the universe, then of myself, and soon I hope to add a few more trusted people to my life, to replace the ones I've had to let go due to proven toxicity.

I made the mistake of telling her an experience of humiliation at the hands of a boy we both knew. Actually two different boys, different times. At the time she responded with Oh but Binah they were messed up back then.

It was not the responce I expected, though it should have been. Had I known her better, and not preferred to remain protected in my little rosey pink bubble of fantasy and self projection. There were other cases, where I had been treated cruely where I went to her for comfort and got the same kind of responces.

In her blog, I discovered while she considers me to be brilliant, she claims there is a trade off, that I've strayed from reality. That I walk all over the people I love, and don't care about their feelings. This is so not me, I had to wonder what was going on in her head. Anyone who knows me well, knows the paralysis I suffer from in being afraid of hurting anyone.

At one point in my life, I couldn't even walk on grass because I was afraid of hurting microscopic bugs I couldn't even see. This has thankfully begun to pass. It was an attitude of mine, that I was at once, beneath and more powerful than everyone around me. That I was somehow less deserving of the same protections and level of respect that others take for granted. This bizar and wrong belief was instilled in me by childhood and allowed me to remain in abusive unhealthy situations long after they should be ended. Don't get me wrong, I was never a shrinking violet, I never backed down from a fight, I was never afraid of conflict, unless the conflict involved those in my immediate circle of safety and love. The circle I had placed her in with a promise of forever.

As I went through my archives I discovered something rather unsettling. This friend of mine was incorporating my experiences into her life in an odd way. She painted her home in the same, exact same, colours I painted my apartment long before she bought her home. I had forgotten I listed the colours on my blog.

She retains bits and peices of my furniture and has them displayed in prominant parts of her home.

She vacationed with her fiance in Old Quebec, where I spent a weekend with my new husband. They went to the same places, did the same things. Then when they got married, they married in the place Gee and I honeymooned in. During all these thiongs, she would get snippy and rude to me when I'd be like Ohh cool where are you going to stay? what are you going to do? are you going to take any side trips? etc.

With all of these similarities in life, between us, I had just assumed we had similar tastes and favorite past times. The things she says about me proved otherwise. She is convinced I don't know anything about her life, but that she knows every detail of my life. That I never cared about her, or loved her, and that she's lived with blinders on. Wowo.

Of course I knew the details of her life, from the age of 13 she either lived through them with me or discussed them with me. And now I see she stole some from me as well. Well imitation is the flattery of the highest kind. I do get a small smile out of it, knowing I have influenced her somewhat over the years, and in ways I think have brought her great benefit. But only she can truly know or judge what I brought into her life, or not.

I understand it, I really do. Romance has always been hard on her. I remember how she would have broken up with a guy just before his birthday or Christmas, just so she wouldn't have to go through the agony of deciding what to get him as a gift. Then the moment of Eureka when she discovered the perfect gift. A small snowglobe, and a note, I'd give you the world if I could. She recycled that one three years with three different guys. She would have kept it up to, but they stopped making that particular snowglobe. Gawd she was funny.

I began to think of the movie, single white female. creepy

I read in her blog about the fact she's become a vegetarian, and her lamentations over whether or not I even knew she was a veg head, as she put it.

Duh, of course I knew she was! We talked about it extensively, describing recipes, favorite ingredients how Yves saves the day, etc. She even sent me a great lazagne recipe, the best veggie lasagna I've ever made. And I made a point of telling her so. I even peppered my blog with veggie recipes for her to read.

Again, though I felt a shiver go up my spine. When I became vegetarian, I remember the ribbing and poking fun of I got at her hands, and the hands of her family and the rest of the community. I wonder if she remembers THAT! How I have always been ahead of the game, and those things I was first in. That's when I realised, I'm a leader, a pioneer in many things, not just fashion, not just philosophy, not just in life choices, I am just ahead of the crowd, or at least ahead of her crowd, and that's why she thinks I'm weird, odd, dangerous, but can't seem to stop imitating me and walking in my footsteps.

I still love her, or at least the her I knew. I recognise I may not really know her at all anymore, but I don't fault either of us for that. That's a trap of long distance freindships I guess. I think we both basically have the same problem, sentimentality. And not being able to let go. With her help, and good timing, I have learned to let go, and it is a brilliant thing. Life is better, brighter and way more enjoyable since I've stopped obsessing over what I was missing with her. Now I know what it was I was missing, nothing.

If I had not known this woman and her family during the turbulent years of my youth, I am not sure I would have made it out alive. I DID feel comfortable with them, I DID feel like they were extended family, and I expected that connection would last forever. Thank you Pickle for teaching me nothing lasts for ever. Not the good stuff, neither the bad stuff. But life DOES go on.
My only wish is that the end could have come sooner, even while recognising I probably would have let it go sooner, had I been honest with myself. My own dishonesty, my own discomfort at speaking what I felt was true, that she don't love me o more... is why it went on for two years after Pickle was sick of it, a full eight years after I knew in my heart of hearts it was already over.

I'll never cling again.
Lesson learned.