My friend Sabre, known for her sharp tongue, sharper wit and razor-sharp (theoretical) sword that will be at your throat the second you say something stupid in her presence (actually, it’s just the way she glares at dumb people — “squeak toys” — who keep talking. And talking. And saying nothing.) that makes you realize that if she calls you friend, you’re pretty damned lucky. And smart, or else you would have nothing in common with her. 🙂
Anyway, I’m reposting something below the fold that she wrote recently because it’s on MySpace and it sucks to use that wretched tool on a Mac. Although if I hate you and you use a Mac, feel free to peruse the site. 😉
*ahem*
The short version is that an old friend of hers has gone missing and is presumed to be deceased. The bigger issue is that it could be any of us who had made the wrong choice, innocently enough, that set us on the wrong path that we could never really turn back from. The greater issue still is that most of us are probably not “important” enough for society to make a big fuss about if our existence ended so brutally.
This post is for all of us who have fallen in with the wrong crowd, those among us who let the wrong person get too close, and those of us who ever dared to self-preserve because we couldn’t shoulder the weight of someone else’s world.
Sabre, as you can tell by her beautifully crafted story, is looking at the pieces of a friendship gone awry and coming to grips with the fact that it ended how it ended and there’s no going back. But for as many friendships as we all let go, and for as many reasons as we have to let them go, that doesn’t always make them possible to save — or even worth saving if you could go back and do it differently.
It’s hard to write about the entry before you’ve read it. It’s called “Marginalized,” and it’s what could happen to any of us. I mean, if I went missing, would you notice? If that fucking nutjob from any of our pasts (and we can all name at least one, eh?) came and did us in, how long would it take for someone to call the cops? What kind of reward would be offered if any of us disappeared? How hard would the justice system fight to bring those people to a similarly untimely end, if that’s what they made us suffer?
I think of all the visits to the police station, the reports I’ve filed, the calls to the fucking FBI (yep, got ’em on speed dial) and confidential talks with people in authority I’ve befriended to ensure my safety. That, if something terrible happens to me, here’s all the information you will ever need. I think of all the times I went to buy items for self-defense, and the times that friends let me stay with them for a night or three because they were worried.
I also think of the times I hid someone from someone else. The times I picked someone up with nothing but the clothes on their back and made sure they were out of harm’s way, just in case. And when you do that, you just know you’re putting yourself right in the Tasmanian devil’s path, too. But it’s what you do; you don’t think about it at the time. Like Sabre so eloquently points out, our society is as strong as the weakest link.
Labels be damned, those of us with nothing but good intentions are worth saving. Even if we’re not debutantes or stars or someone that the broader society would miss if we weren’t here anymore. On one hand, we as individuals cannot personally take care of everybody, but then again, isn’t that what the government says, too?
I don’t know what I’m proposing. (Maybe a domestic social program instead of dumping more dollars into Iraq. *hugs a tree*) I just do know that to get away from someone who’s clearly brutal and possessive and insane, you basically emasculate them. And for people who have to use someone they view as weaker (i.e., a woman) as a verbal and/or physical punching bag, they’re already not men to begin with.
Which means they feel they have to punish you somehow, for not sucking their dicks or kissing their asses and taking their shit even though you were not put on this earth to do any of it.
Anyway, she tells the story better than I can.
Please read it — and don’t feel bad about running in the other direction when you get even the slightest bit creeped out by someone, even if you have no solid reason to think they’re bad news.
Those of us who’ve had to stand tall right in harm’s way, have been targeted by those we’ve dared to feel sorry for, that nobody understood them. Feel sorry for no one, hear me? Get close to people with caution as a buffer. You never can tell which one’s the real thing and which one’s just waiting to make you feel their pain.
Just think of how many nights’ worth of sleep we’d all get back if we hadn’t felt obligated to stick around just because we thought it would ensure our safety or, at least, not invite any more aggravation.
We’re all worth so much more than what this girl suffered. And so was she. I just wish she would have known that.
Read on. …