I set fire to a bridge last week.
I wrote about this a while back. If you want the back story, go here.
I know it's my own fault I'm in this situation. I should have terminated the arrangement the first time I felt uneasy about the whole thing. But I didn't, for a whole lot of reasons that really aren't that important. What is important is that I ignored my intuition and paid attention to the words I was hearing. That's never worked out well for me in the past so I don't know why I continue to think it will in the present.
At any rate, there came a time when I knew there was no way this was not going to end badly. I'd like to say I ended the arrangement right then and there but I didn't. It was some while yet before I did. Our glacier speed move to the country had finally gathered some momentum, it was membership renewal time at the gym and the crashing economy all collided before I got the courage to call an end to it.
Mea culpa.
So now it's payback time. And I do like to pay my debts. The problem lies in a lack of common understanding about when and with what it is to be paid. She is not easy to work with in this regard. I conceived and proposed a fairly major original work in pate de verre that I hoped to balance the remaining scale with more or less and felt I deserved several years in which to work out this obligation that took 6 years to accrue.
Well, it all came to an ugly head in a phone conversation that started out pleasant enough. But she turned it inevitably toward the work I was doing for her. The conversation I had been avoiding and deflecting. Oh she had some different ideas instead of this work I have already spent hours on. I refused to renegotiate. Then there was the when? and the how much? and the incredulity that we could be even with this piece. The interrupting and accusations started. The raised voices and the anger.
I hung up on her.
She sent me a demanding and dismissive text. So I struck the spark to the tender. I responded, held my ground but I was kinda rude.
“I don't need friends like you”, she sent.
“You are right”, I replied. “That was wrong of me. I should not have said that.”
But, I'm sorry to say, I am not sorry.
Clearly I need to work on my karma.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletewords, words, words. Intuition. Sometimes it's a tough call.
ReplyDeleteI think you just did a great piece of karmic work! Mazel tov. Onwards and upwards. I remember reading this story; the situation was like a black hole, probably for both of you.
ReplyDeleteI guess breaking karmic ties is in the air this week! Or something.
You got trust your gut, it knows. Move on, put the incident behind you. Life is too short.
ReplyDeleteIf you feel you've reasonably done everything you could to return the favour, and she knew at the time that it would be a difficult debt for you to repay, I'd say that the one who needs to work on her Karma is this woman and not you. Let it go. I would consider the debt paid in full.. and then some.
ReplyDeleteGood for you, Ellen! I don't think your response was rude, at all. In fact, mine would have been a lot more rude, including a few choice, four letter words. This woman sounds like an egotistical, psycho-control freak, and you're much better off without her in your life! Look forward, not back!
ReplyDeleteYes, you have been rather foolish.
ReplyDeletePresumably you have tallied up what she had from you in return like she tallied up your debt?
Charge her what you think your work is worth. If she doesn't want to pay you, she owes you.
If you think you are quits, you are quits.
Had to be done - there's no reasoning with a person who's reason is broke...
ReplyDeleteI think your Karma is just fine. And you apologised, which is more mature than I would have been. I need to work on my maturity.
ReplyDeleteI know that I sometimes wait too long to say what I should have said sooner, and then I say it harshly. It's as if it's hard to get the ball rolling, but when I finally do get it started, I have just as much trouble getting it to stop.
ReplyDelete