I’m not dead yet, but the vultures are already circling. While my eventual demise is a given,
even by me, I’m astounded by the size of the flock my yet to be rotting carcass seems to be attracting. Evidently, just the prospect of fresh kill draws a crowd here at the Seminary.
Sadly, these people cannot be classified as enemies, despite their behavior. As enemies I could delude myself into believing that revenge is justice long over due. No, these people are good people on the whole, people who used to be my friends and close confidants. News of my fall, my departure, my demise, my “whatever you want to call it” has made its way through the grapevine–The response has been staggering and not in ways I ever expected.
A few weeks back I got the following email:
| Ms. X tells me you are not going to be her intern next year cuz you are moving to Astoria. Is this so? If it is I will need to know when you expect to vacate, with the understanding that you would have to move no later than June 30th. |
This lovely piece of correspondence was from the housing department here at the Seminary. Never mind I had just lost my job. Never mind my Internship is falling through and I won’t be around to do all sort of things for housing next year. Never mind that the email is not in possession of the “facts” much less the “truth.” No, it’s just “when are you leaving?”
For the record, because the facts are important to me at least, the email (or more likely its writer) has placed the proverbial cart in front of the horse. I’m not going to be an Intern here next year because while the school was given 6 months to raise funding they chose to do nothing. I’m moving to Astoria because it was our fall-back position– the place we would move to next year only if we had no other destination. Sadly, we are being compelled to fall back. We are falling back because my internship never meant enough for the school to actually fund it. Instead, they were relying on my campus job at the bookstore to be my funding, banking on my willingness to work for nothing. Trust me, when I suggested they be creative about funding my work I never expected the results I got! I meant lower my rent or give me health care or come up with some small gesture of your good faith. Never in my most paranoid moments did I think “be creative” would be interpreted as “do nothing.” Which, in fact, up until the time the school decided to
close the bookstore in March is precisely what was done. Nothing.
But that wasn’t enough. Now the knife gets twisted. Blood is gushing and it’s no wonder the
vultures are taking flight. The above email confirms what I have long suspected. There is “what happened” and then there is the “Official Seminary Spin”. Guess which version of the tale has me
cast as the low life who didn’t live up to her end of the deal and ran off to live in Astoria? While they were so busy breaking the 9th commandment, why oh why couldn’t they have picked a more romantic destination? Huh? Would it have killed them to be more creative? How hard would it have been to breathe into life a story that has me running off to say, Paris? Or for that matter, go wild. . . send me off to Europe with my lesbian lover to set up a commune or sell wild flowers and organic goat cheese from our farm! I mean it. If you are going to fabricate “truths”– do me one small favor and take a tip from Luther: Sin Boldly!
Instead, the “Official Seminary Spin” is a distortion of the truth which makes it all the more believable.
Today, a Seminary sanctioned vulture knocked on my front door in the form of a contractor. He wanted to know which direction our bathroom door swings because, “As soon as you leave we are going to remodel your apartment.” He’s just doing his job–batting at vultures is
pointless.
Today, a letter arrived in the mail from a former friend who conveniently dropped me when I ceased to be of use to her. After a year of silence she was writing to let me know that she
had learned through the grapevine that I was “moving on.” Just writing to pour a little salt into the gaping holes in my back. I’m wounded people, not dead. Maybe she meant well–but I’m suspicious of the timing. Nothing in her note suggested concern for my welfare. There was nothing that said, “Hey, this sucks–I’m sorry it’s happening to you.” No, she just
wanted me to know she had heard the news.
But what stings far more than the incessant laments over the closing of the bookstore by people who never supported it, or the petty reminders to vacate ASAP because the school has plans for my apartment, or even the blatant falsehoods being bandied about campus like a game of Telephone gone awry–more, much more painful are the silent voices of friends who find it easiest to avoid me or offer me platitudes when they can not. Into my open wounds pours a deluge of saltwater that cannot be stemmed or refuted, only endured. Last week, one such “friend” suggested that when I got some “space and distance” I would probably want to come back next year for graduation if only to, “Hang out with all my friends I haven’t seen in a year.” What
about all my “friends” I haven’t seen this month?
Here’s the thing–Time will heal all this over. For the most part. I will get to the point where I remember the beauty of this place and the knives are distant memories. But I’m not there yet. And when I do get there, why would I ever want to come back and reopen the wounds? Closure is overrated. Why would I want to come back and hang out with the very same people who have offered little to no support, little to no care, little to no friendship in all this? When the vultures finally clear–I’m not inclined to invite them back with fresh blood. No, when I do get some space and distance, when I’ve extracted the last knife and the wounds on my soul have healed over, the only place I’m going to is Disneyland!
At least there, people pretend to care.
