Well, it's been a couple of days now since the "final blow up" for lack of a better way to call it. A couple of days for me to calm down a bit and try to get a grip. Things are slowly settling out and sorting out from the storm (though the hardest hit counties still have a long ways to go, and haven't even begun to release casualty information or much else since they're trying just to get basics up). But life goes on, and so should I.

First, a couple of things I want to clear up after some of my emotional rantings and ravings from the last couple of days. If it's not clear, my major problems have arisen, and consistently been, with one person over the last 2 months. When I say that I'm sick of something, or tired of WC and won't miss it, I'm not refering to the people or community there. I'm refering to the boatloads of garbage I've had from the one, from public slams to hateful, insulting, curse filled notes in private, the complete inability to say much of anything about anything without getting slammed by the one, and the whole deal. It's hard to separate them all out sometimes, but they are separate, and while it may have sounded like I was laying the blame on several people, truthfully when it comes down it, the problems revolved around just one.

That isn't to say, however, that I don't have disagreements with how it was handled overall. I, first of all, could have, and should have, handled it much better. Some of my responses to the one were definitly not typical me, and I let them get under my skin and reacted from that far more than I should have. I cartainly have some regrets over some of what I said, and wouldn't mind being able to take some of that back. But at the same time when I look back again at the stuff sent to me (and I have most of it archived) it doesn't hesitate to get me extremely upset again and the callousness and complete disrespect that is shown there- especially from someone that is supposed to be a coworker, equal, and who I thought was a friend.

The other is my frustration, sadness, and pain, from how others reacted. While this person slammed me in public, they were never publicly rebuked. Ever. Yet I was several times- and on comments that I still fail to see how they were offensive if someone actually looked at what I said. I just don't get it. If anyone else had made the comments the other person did, they would have been slammed and put very quickly in their place. But for whatever reason, people didn't say anything publicly about what he said. And with so many comments directed spitefully towards me from him, it hurts.

It makes me wonder to about some of those that I consider friends among that group. I've been informed that they've repeatedly asked what the deal with me is. Yet none of them, ever, ever asked me about it. Why? I'm still waiting to hear from them- any of them. But it feels like they'd rather talk among themselves about me than talk to me. Maybe I'm partially the cause for that, but I've always believed that's not what friends do. If you have a problem with someone, or think someone else has a problem, and they're your friend, you go to them and talk to them about it. And work things out together. Or maybe it's just that I have a very different idea of what friends are. In any case, now I'm left wondering how many of those I thought were my friends really were. Or still are.

The sad thing is, because most of them are close friends of the one, I kind of have a feeling (possibly wrong, but no one will talk to me to let me know) what's happening behind the scenes. Which just goes to reinforce how much of the outsider I was. It's hard when you feel like you're outside the "clique" of buddies, and feeling like that's playing a major role in what's going on with how people deal (or not) with you.

And it's to bad to. Because I will miss most of them. I will miss the conversations and what we did together. But the aggravation, frustration, feelings of being attacked constantly, and ridiculous, stupid fighting over anything and everything I said just aren't worth it. If it's to the point where a person can't every say anything for fear of being attacked, then there's just no point in being there.

Maybe someday it'll sort out again. Maybe someday things will work out where I could go back. But I just don't see it anytime soon. To many walls would have to come down, changes would have to be made and certain people dealt with. And sadly, I just don't see it happening anytime in the near future. Which is sad for a place that otherwise is a great place. And for people that I'd still love to see and get together with again, but am afraid that because of this that may not happen again.

Y'know, a life as a loner really sucks sometimes. Trust me on that one.