grudges in go mode

There was a woodpecker pecking on the wall of my room just now, the room i grew up in. and, feeling defensive, i first asked him to leave and after no response I knocked back. I looked through the screen of the open window just as it looked up at me. It waited for a good 5 seconds before I stared it down and it flew away. I am laying on the bed, checking my email and the internet brings me yet another plea of help from an ex-friend.

I had been working on overcoming grudges, and thought this particular person would be a good place to start. i had recently been working to allow her back into my life, though she had even more recently re-earned her name on my shit list for the very same reasons I opted to take her off of my friend and acquaintance lists the first time.

And today, just now one of my mom's friends demonstrated the exact opposite qualities as shit-list-girl, loyalty and respect for other's time and energy and feelings. Yesterday my mom and two of her good friends were supposed to meet at the thai restaurant in town. And somehow they all ended up waiting with 2 large tables reserved at three separate restaurants. My mom's good friend called later so deeply distressed that she had stood my mom up that she was crying. She just dropped by the house to bring us a bucket of hand picked blueberries.

So Shit-List-Girl has hurt me in countless ways. It began in small ways by not returning phone calls or 'forgetting' to show up to a planned event and escalated to the scale of deciding not to fulfill a verbal contract that involved me loosing thousands of dollars. Each time she would hurt someone she would come back with flowers and letters and promises of bike rides and picnics and nights out at the local bar, but alas, these things did not happen.

Others learned that they could just not depend on her to show or to chip in for a group adventure. Others decided that it wasn't so bad as long as you didn't take it personally; she does it to everyone, after all.

But to me, this is not what it means to be a friend. And being let down over and over again is not worth my time even as an acquaintance. Especially when that acquaintance runs back to you yet again for support and forgiveness and more of your energy.

The details of her most recent re-earn of the shit list rank aren't important but the fact that she wrote an email to me today apologizing for the situation and NOT her mistake and asking for support is just part of the cycle. And an annoying one. Not quite as annoying as my dog disappearing for an evening without a note or a phone call, or as annoying as not making my mortgage payment because she just decided not to come home for the week or two before rent was due, but maybe just as annoying as promising me a birthday bike ride and never making it happen or offering me work when I desperately needed money and offering it to someone else at the last second.

I don't enjoy complaining or speaking poorly of others. It doesn't make me feel good. But I can offer no support to her now. I have no energy left for her. I am done. Grudge project on hold until next opportunity worth pursuing.