Rumor Has It

 

I’m not the kind of person to let go of things very easily. I realize that this is one of my unfortunate flaws.

A little over a year ago my boat was badly rocked by a huge friendship breakup that I went through. It was ugly. My life was greatly changed and I’ve lost a lot of other people and friends along the way.

Since this happened, a whole shitstorm of other bad things came my way, making it really difficult to really deal with one issue at a time. I guess that in a sense I pushed those feelings aside, because I couldn’t afford to really become vulnerable

But then I went on fucking Facebook…

I’ve tried my best to remove Executive Friend from my life as much as possible. He made it quite easy to begin with because he deleted me. Since then I have deleted/unfollowed/unliked any pages or groups that linked me with him. Unfortunately, the theatre community is tiny and we still have a few friends and colleagues who link us. Therefore I still see the odd poster or picture.

Now, I’m just going to be honest. I wish that I could say that it doesn’t bother me at all; that I roll my eyes and say Fuck you, motherfucker while scrolling through these posts. But that would be a lie. It hurts, simply put, to watch other people carry on as if you never existed. I see them continuing the work that I played a fundamental part in starting, and it makes me angry. I worked so hard for so little, and when I was no longer needed I got thrown to the wolves. It’s kind of hard to not be bitter about it.

The final straw that broke the camel’s back was when I went on Facebook to find a status by one of Executive Friend’s family members. The status expressed gratitude towards their “theatre family”, listing a group of people, new and old, who were so special to them. Pretty much everyone was listed except for me.

And I lost my shit.

I had a Bridget Jones meltdown of epic proportions. I wanted to key everyone’s cars and smash their windows. I felt so fucking discarded. I was one of the founding members of that little family; and there were a few times when I saved them from disaster. And my name can’t even be mentioned on a list of people that I know they only pretend to like. It is as if Dorothy poured her little bucket of water and I, the Wicked Witch, dissolved out of their lives. I’m broke, I lost a bunch of friends and work opportunities, and I’m struggling my ass off to try and keep things together; all because he was too proud to admit that he was wrong.

All of these emotions suddenly hit me and I couldn’t understand it. Wasn’t I supposed to be over this by now? I mean, for fuck’s Wentzel, listen to a self empowering anthem by Cher or Madonna and move on.

But it turns out that moving on isn’t that simple.

I guess that it would have been easier to go on if I had some kind of closure. It all ended to abruptly. There was no goodbye, no resolution; just a carefully worded email essentially saying “fuck you” (paraphrasing).

And then there’s the talking. Whenever I happen to be at the same place as these people they avoid me like a plague. They go and stand in a little group and glare at me over their shoulders as they talk. Major high school flashbacks…

I’ve also gotten some inside info regarding the talking. One of my replacements (because, even if I say so myself, I wasn’t replaced by just one person) who has never spoken a word to me personally, apparently always has some kind of comment to make about me. Now, how would he be able to talk about me if he doesn’t know me? It’s obvious that he’s been told God knows what about me. But hey, maybe it’s true. I’m an asshole, right?

But fuck him.

And fuck the rest of them too.

When I wrote the original blog post, someone commented saying that Executive Friend seemed like a dick. At the time I thought it was a little harsh. I mean, I was still trying to be nice (or as nice as I could be).

But now I’m tired of being nice.

No one is being nice to me. No one is giving me the benefit of the doubt. And if he ever really was my friend he would have had the guts to at least talk to me and not discard me like a used tampon.

This realization has brought me to the conclusion that this is supposed to still hurt. It’s normal. It was a great loss. But I’ve gone on to do some pretty cool things without them. I know that this will probably always be something that will bother me. It’s like the aftershocks of a huge earthquake. When something big happens in your life it leaves a lasting impact.

I never use to like the saying “What people think of me is none of my business”. I hated the thought of being gossiped about. But now I am old enough to understand it. They can talk if they want to. In fact, it amuses me to hear the lies that they tell. The reason why I can laugh now is because I know my worth. I’m not the best, but I am talented. I work hard. I’m loyal – until you fuck me over.

Why should I care about what a boy who is, frankly speaking, no match for me on stage?

I mean, I would have to respect him first in order to value his opinion…

Read the original blog post here.

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