Whoa

I concealed my identity so well in this blog that I almost just successfully concealed it from mySELF. Just took me half an hour to sign in to this blog because I couldn't remember my username (though I remembered my password, uselessly enough).

I feel strangely liberated in this blog because I don't think anyone is reading it. Therefore, if anyone happens to be reading this, be aware of that scintillating fact--I am more uncensored than usual. Whoooopeee! Actually, it is kind of a big deal, because I can't help censoring myself habitually and pathologically, and when I think anyone is reading what I write, the self-consciousness kicks in big time. I have a really deep longing to be less censored, which is part of the reason I created this blog. Anyway, two things are on my mind tonight.

1) There is a rebellion going on in this building against our manager, who has treated me really terribly. It's been a very interesting and different experience for me. When all this crappy stuff started happening, Mark wanted right away to talk to other tenants, gather their experiences, and see if anyone else felt the way we did.

I didn't want to.

Why not, you ask? Because that sort of thing has always burned me in the past. When, in the past, I (or Mark and I and a friend of ours, in the case that springs to mind most readily) was treated in a truly abominable and unacceptable way, I found that friends weren't willing to support me, by and large. Or, they offered support of a very limited, staying-neutral-and-protecting-themselves sort of way. At the time I was surprised, disappointed, sad, pissed off, in varying degrees depending on the specific people. After awhile, though, I accepted it. It started to seem natural and inevitable: people don't want to get involved in other people's messes. They want to stay out of it. Makes sense. Even if they care about you, they don't care enough to mess up their own lives, potentially, over it. If I sound bitter, I really don't intend to. It does make sense to me, and who knows if I'd be any different, in their shoes? The only thing that sort of gnawed away at me was the fear that I wasn't believed. I wanted to be believed, when I was telling the truth. I think people have a tendency not to want to believe things that are really, really bad and unfair. They want to say, "There must be two sides to this story"--but sometimes, SOMEtimes, there are not. Anyway, in my past: Bad Things happened--Very Bad Things; told friends; asked for support; was told by quite a few people I trusted that it couldn't be, just as I said it was, and that they didn't want to be involved (basically). Over time, I have pretty much accepted this and, again, don't mean to sound bitter about it, because with time, I have come to understand a bit more where those people were coming from, and have learned to adjust my expectations of other people.

The point is, though, I didn't want to reach out to other tenants because I was sure the same thing was going to happen all over again and I didn't want to go through it again. But we HAVE ended up talking to people, and something very different came about. Others felt the same way. Some felt even more strongly than we did. We gained wonderful allies. We felt less alone. And now we are part of a process of trying to get this awful man removed as our manager. That is a good thing. He is not the sort of person you want having the keys to your apartment: a bigoted, volatile, mentally unstable, angry, angry man. I am not alone; other people are helping me, and I am helping them. We are in this together. No one I've told my story to has made me feel like I am insane. They all seem completely non-shocked and then share stories of their own. Although this is, of course, a totally unpleasant experience to go through, it is so much better to go through it WITH other people.

#2) A friend hurt me recently with some remarks, and this is something I'd like to write more about in a later post, but can't right now because I have too much work to do. That's not exactly what this Number Two is about. What it's about is that I have tried to write a letter to her, and I can't. I mean, I HAVE; I've written several drafts of letters to her. At least three drafts. None of them can be sent. I keep thinking I need to walk away, take a deep breath, come back, and try the letter again. But I've been doing that for a month, and now, at last, I finally believe this letter can't be written. Which means, unfortunately, that I have to let her get away with what she said to me. It's pissing me off, but I feel trapped. I can't seem to write a letter to her that could actually be sent. It's a very frustrating thing to experience, especially for someone who has always wanted to believe that words are her friends and that if she tries hard enough, she can express anything she needs to express, somehow, some way.

Well, I've got more thoughts on both the numbered items on my list, but I have to go for now. It's kind of fun being this uncensored me... fun may not be the right word, but it's something good.