Estrangement

I have another "long-time" person in my life, but this person is not a friend. This person has outwardly insulted me and several of my immediate family members and other loving friends over the past 15 years to the extent that I have now shut this person out.

Totally. OUT!

It wasn't only the insults, it was the game-playing and disrespect of feelings. I do not do shouting matches. I do not associate with people who do this. At ALL. There will never be a confrontation nor a conciliation. It is too late.

It took a great amount of tolerance from me to have it come to this. At first, I just turned away; the wound wasn't deep. The next time it happened I walked away and licked my wound. The third time, I ran away to tend to a deep wound and then I had completely gone away - bleeding profusely - to join others who were also stricken and injured in the same fashion. There is something seriously skewed in this person's way of thinking and inconsideration of reactions by verbalizing in such venomous manner. This person has a poisonous tongue. It is intolerable and treacherous behavior pointedly intended to entrap and tear apart.

Now "long-time" person wants to get together. It won't happen. My feelings of ill treatment are justified and today my bite punctures are repaired.

I'm reminded of an old-time tale of a frog and a scorpion.

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One day a scorpion is hanging around the side of a stream. A frog happens by on his way across the stream. The scorpion cannot swim so he stops the frog and asks if he can climb on his back for a ride across the water.

“Do you think I am crazy?” The frog says. “If I let you on my back, you’ll certainly sting me and I’ll sink in the water and die.”

The scorpion replies, “hey just think about it for a second, I can’t swim. If I sting you, then you’ll die and I’ll sink and die too.”

The frog thinks for a second and decides that makes sense, so he proceeds to give the scorpion a ride across the stream.

About half way across the stream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog screams “What are you doing? Why did you sting me? Now I am going to drown and die and you are going to sink and die too.”

The scorpion says “because I am a scorpion.”

In this irritating tale there is a disturbing truth: it really happens that people behave in incomprehensible manners with no other reason than, nobody knows why, "that is their nature."

This is a disease that lies deep in human nature. There are many examples, practically every day. We can laugh when they are just funny. But some are dismally tragic.

Sometimes they don't really know or understand life and friendships. I forgive that. Some people never find what they're looking for. It's pitiful.