Revenge is Sweet?

This past semester of grad school has been rough for many reasons, not the least of which was my being part of a highly dysfunctional team with an unhinged leader. Those of you who have been following my Twitter updates (Alice - my most devoted friend - what would I do without you?), you've been aware of the headaches this woman has caused me as they occurred in real time. I won't get into the nitty gritty of this unbalanced lunatic's psychosis, but let me just say that if an entrepreneur ever asks you to write a business plan as part of a team that also includes her boyfriend (a spineless, if attractive, minion who also happens to have confessed his love for you), DO NOT say yes like I did. *Mental headslap*

Sifting through the debris of her abusive wake, I felt an all-too familiar sensation tickle my ego: the desire for vengeance. This was a woman who had publicly humiliated me, tried to have me removed from the team and thus fail the class, called the quality of my work into question, and started an administrative war over a school project. For most of the semester, Lex successfully convinced me that being flexible would be an excellent exercise in management which would prepare me well for the wolverine world of strategy consulting (my chosen career). 9 years as a ballerina and 2 as a gymnast were not enough to prepare me for the back-breaking exercise required to accommodate this woman's volatility and irrationality, but the fear of retribution kept me from pitching my case of unprofessionalism to the administration.

About two weeks ago, my team finally completed this hellish project and pitched our business plan to a panel of 14 judges, 13 of which agreed to fund our venture. This, of course, was a great success, but not one which Psycho Bitch was prepared to attribute in any fashion to the mountain of hard work and 15 hour days I had put into the project. Le sigh.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I have a nasty talent for inflicting verbal and mental pain on people. This is something with which I tended to lash out when I was younger but have since learned to keep in check in an effort to be a kinder, more compassionate person. Most of the time that strategy works, but ooooooohhhh this woman got under my skin and was flirting with my bad girl ways. Vengeance was knocking and my ego had to be straightjacketed so as not to answer in kind.

There were several options, of course: academic destruction, professional destruction, or personal destruction. All three had their potential benefits. Academic destruction was the trickiest because it required the most proof of wrongdoing, whereas professional and personal destruction could largely be based on rumors and circumstantial evidence. Most people in the program had a long-standing distaste for Psycho Bitch based on their own interactions with her, so Doors 1-3 all had the potential for large scale damage.

As I contemplated these evil thoughts brought on by the impatience and childish pride of a former self, my father called. In despair I confessed my struggle and asked him for advice. He laughed at the recognition of our shared personality traits and relied on one of my mother's adages for advice: "You can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow". "But I don't want to tell her off" I exclaimed, "I want to hurt her. I want her to see you can't fuck with me without there being consequences!!!" My father sighed and said: "San, when you were just 17 years old you taught me a valuable lesson in life." I nodded. I knew the story well...

My freshman year in college I had failed one of my work-intensive classes because my mother had cancer. When I asked my academic adviser for help, he had recommended I drop out of school, noting that the "Ivy League required something more than such excuses to make the cut." I was stunned. When my father suggested that year that I take up my F in Calculus with the Academic Review Board, I told him that a student trying to battle against an entire institution would be a waste of time. Instead, I said, I wanted to focus on how I could move forward and still accomplish my goal of graduating with a respectable GPA and getting into grad school. He disagreed with my decision but let me have the last word in my own academic career. I ended up graduating Magna Cum Laude and got into grad school with a scholarship. He would tell me later that that was one of the most important lessons I'd ever taught him: know when to cut your losses and move forward without looking back.

I sighed again. I knew what his next sentence would be: "Cut your losses. Move on." I thanked him for his advice, chatted for a bit longer and then hung up with a guilty conscience. Why was I being so petty? There were so many bigger issues in my life (some of them reasons for this blog, par example) - why was I worried about some no-name, 30-something bully with a chip on her shoulder, an infernal temper, and an inferiority complex? Her existence in my life as of the end of this project was terminated. She had no impact on my job prospects, my relationship, my family life, or my future in general. There was no reason to give her even one more nanosecond of my attention, even if it was in plotting her demise.

Later that day I got to thinking: giving up my pipe dream of pride-inspired revenge had proved relatively easy when pushed by sound logic. But what about the desire for vindication I feel on a regular basis when I think about Raf? He, too, had removed himself from my life and expressed the desire to stay out of it completely. For all intents and purposes he was the same as Psycho Bitch - irrelevant to my future. Then it dawned on me: the key was in the past. Raf is essential to the person I've become, and no matter how hard I try to purge his influence on me, I am - as of yet - unable to. How can I feel compassion for someone who has none in return? It continues to baffle me every time I write about, think about, feel, remember, mourn, blame, dream about, try to forgive, or - worst of all - pretend to hate him.

As I'm writing this post, my phone buzzes. Although I haven't yet forgiven my Blackberry for its surprise assault on my emotions a few weeks ago and thus still cringe at every notification sound it makes, I walk over to my dresser and pick it up. It's a text message from Lex: "Finally going to bed. Miss you and love you. You're a really great person. Don't forget."

With friends like that, the back burner seems like the right place for vindication....for tonight.

Merry Christmas Raf. I miss you.

Rehab

Today was a pinball kind of day. Rihanna just came out with a new song that puts me about 2 years behind schedule in terms of coping with the loss of Raf and has aptly titled it "Rehab." Every time I hear it, I feel my heart harden and my jaw clench. I wait for the emotional blow to hit me about 3/4 of the way through the song and let out a sigh of epic proportions when it's over. Lex knows not to ask questions. YouTube won't let me embed the song, but you can check out the video here (ignore the ludicrous video.) The last couple of seconds (4:32+) aptly capture the expression I most often use when I feel Raf's memory surround me.

Why does grief come over us in waves? Is it the result of the brain's compartmentalization, or is it a sign of unprocessed emotions? Am I putting myself through unnecessary guilt when I let my mind drift over the well-known landscape of regret and nostalgia, or am I experiencing mental indigestion because I'm incapable of correctly processing pain? I wonder what Jake's wife would have to say about this.

Speaking of Jake, I got an email from him a couple of days ago in reference to the Master Plan I recently wrote about:

Hi San,

Since reading your latest blog post, I feel like a klutz. The letter I've been writing is to you, not Raf. In your last post you said I was writing him the epic, but what I will say to Raf will be pretty short. In an ideal world he'll be inspired to say something like the email you inspired me to write to Maria* - and I meant what I wrote her - which was a short explanation and has definitely made that relationship a big positive. I have you to thank for that. Ach...forgive me, I'm an idiot. The MP as you put it (which sounds manipulative) is in the works, but the letter's to you...

I am now up to date with your blog. Great writing, you could do well as a writer. I only realised once I got to November that the most recent posts are at the top...I started at the end of each month and read to the beginning.

Jake

Hmmm. I am most curious about this letter. He tends to be very insightful. It also got me thinking: what is going to say to Raf? Moreover, maybe it was time to start thinking about what exactly it is that I want from Raf in an ideal situation.

As I was contemplating these things, my phone buzzed. Blackberrys are amazing things, aren't they? They keep track of your email, your contacts, photos, music, and best of all: painful calendar reminders you'd rather forget. Thank you, Blackberry, for reminding me that December 2nd is Raf's anniversary. Thank you so very much. Perhaps you can also remind me that his child (which he neglected to tell me about) was born in September? Oh no wait, I'll remember that one on my own: it's about a week after my OWN birthday. Thank you, brain. You and Blackberry have been most excellent ninja memory assassins today. It's a good thing they haven't invented a Blackberry chip you can implant in your brain yet, because you can't throw a chip embedded in your cranium against the wall when your eyes well up with anger.

In other news, Hayden's father has put his gorgeous canal house on the market. I imagine this must be a pretty painful experience - downsizing because you're lonely even though that means leaving behind the last thing your wife did before she died: decorate and furnish that house. I was back in Europe for my second round (the one that got me the job) but didn't get in touch with him. When I got back to the States, I texted him saying: "Hey, I was in town but didn't have time to stop by. Next time, maybe. Hope you're well." No response, unsurprisingly.

That was in September. Flash forward a few months. Marco and I are about to start looking for apartments in January. Needless to say, irony felt it necessary to make sure all of the ones available and with decent parking are located exactly in the same neighborhood as Hayden's new place. Ah, yes. Well played, Lady Irony. Well played.

A question occurred to me recently while reading Raf's letters (yes, I ended up bringing them back with me from my parents' house. Bad girl, I know.)

Did he take advantage of me?

It's possible - the four-year age gap was significant when we met. But aside from our intense and prolonged bout of kissing during his visit there was no intimate physical contact to speak of, so that rules out motivation by sex. But what about emotional (ab)use?

I recently theorized that Raf took advantage of me emotionally at a time when I was vulnerable to losing my own emotional identity by being his crutch. This is based mostly on the blush of embarrassment I feel when reading our fervent correspondence from that time period, but I recall it as being nothing short of genuine on both our parts at the time of its unfolding. Certainly a teenage boy with nothing but sex on the brain would not take the trouble to cultivate an 8-year, emotionally intimate relationship with someone half a world away? There would be a virtual guarantee of no physical satisfaction, not to mention millions of other options in his home country.

As I do almost every week, I re-read Ingrid's angry email to me demanding my exit from Raf's existence, trying to glean some sort of truth in her venom. Even her hateful assessment of the situation certainly makes it seem like our bond was real.

The question Jake inspired remains: what do I want from Raf? An explanation? An apology? A friendship? The answer is so hard to pinpoint. Maybe there comes a time in grief where you're too far gone to want to go back. At what point do the wounds of bitterness and anger soften into the faint, throbbing pain of nostalgia? When have you buried and wept over enough pieces of your shattered heart to resent a perpetrator's effort to come back and help you dig them up? And if that desire goes away, why don't the emotional thorns?

Maybe that's the feeling of wisdom taking root in my soul...


*Explanation to follow at a later date (when I figure out what the hell he's referring to - my memory does not match my apparent wisdom. Oops!)