Two of my best friends in the whole world are moving at the begining of next month. It's not just a simple move around the corner or to a nearby city--they're moving all the way across the country to Washington State. It's pretty depressing. I'm used to seeing them all the time, and now they'll be gone. I'll still be able to talk to them, but it just won't be the same as having them five minutes away by train.
When friends start moving away, you begin to think about all the fun you had with them and how much you'll miss them. Unfortunately, the good times we had together have been marred by selfishness and pettiness. We used to be a large group. We got together every weekend, we cooked, we drank, we played. But, I guess like it often does, there was one person who could not keep peace.
This person liked to be the center of attention. Even that I could live with--it doesn't really bother me all that much. But then the put-downs started. She would toss veiled insults in my face, but I chose to ignore it: we'd been friends for almost eight years. She made a mistake though. She started to talk about me to the other people in the group. It was stupid, childish stuff. I guess her mentality was geared towards destroying my reputation in order to become the center of attention, the person with the gossip. The only problem was this: I'm a quiet person, there's nothing to gossip about. So she invented the gossip.
Naturally, one of my friends confronted me with the gossip. I told her the truth--it was all lies. One thing led to another and that one little P.I.T.A. and her supporters were no longer welcome at my friends' house. You think that being exposed would stop her, right? Instead, she just kept talking about everybody to the one friend from my group that she still had.
Ever since we cut ties with this little piece of poultry (as we so unaffectionally call her), she's been thinking up ways to get at us. She went as far as to send word to us via one of her little lackeys not to go to the wake of a mutual friend's grandmother. How low is that? On a day we should have been putting differences aside, this one wanted to start trouble. Some friend!
So, now as my friends pack up, the poultry sends word (again from the lacky) that she wants back the books she let them read back when we were all civil. Now, this shows some nerve! This is the one who kept my pencil sketches from my manga! I asked for them back repeatedly even before trouble started, and I never received them (she must think they're half hers because she traced them in ink and scanned). She even took the title that I worked so hard on and took it as the title of her website! On top of that, she is now prank calling my moving friends, playing ring ding ditch.
I guess my problem is that I wished I'd shed her sooner. She was nothing but an insulting braggart, but I failed to see it. For eight years I put up with the "I'm better than you" act. If I had seen it right away, my memories of my friends would not include her. Fortunately, as my friend says, karma comes back to you in the end. She may be living the charmed exsistance now (so she thinks), but one day her so-called new friends will turn on her. That's right, she hasn't learned her lesson: she's talking about these friends to anyone who will listen.
So, on the off-chance she ever wanders here (because she does know my site address): my life now is exactly what she said it would never be. I have a boyfriend who loves me dearly and who I love very much, I will have my Master's by May 2005, and I'll be getting a Ph.D. I have real friends who love me, even though I'm no supermodel. They don't use me to make themselves look good.
To Tim and Jessi, who are moving away, I'm sorry I brought that poultry into your lives. One day in the future, we'll look back on all this mess and laugh hysterically. I love you both dearly and I know you'll be happy ^_~.