Difficult People By The Book
Perhaps I should admit, right here and now, that I, myself, am difficult to deal with. I’m not naive of this, especially now. I’m in grief and my whole life is in turmoil. Transition? Everything changed recently, lets just say that. Painful? Yes. Difficult? Not really.
And yes, I said “former friend.” She knew my late partner, Bob, for 40 years and has kind of been reaching out ostensibly to help me during this time. I appreciate the gesture, but it quickly became me helping her, and her probing into my life choices, as if I have to account for my actions to her or anyone else. But she’s a preacher’s wife, which I guess gives her the right. Or so she thinks. Thought, past tense.
I’ve been seeking to understand and overcome the hoarding impulse in my own and Bob’s lives lately, and making good progress. Odd that I would end up helping her with the same problem. But I have some understanding, even wisdom, in this area, so maybe she felt judged by me. And what I know is that there is a wrong way to deal with too much stuff and that’s the way she’s dealing with it; wrongly.
Here’s the situation: She got evicted from where she was living, and moved out in 2 weeks. Not much time to sort things out. The new place was smaller- aren't they always?- so they heaped as much as possible into an overpriced storage locker. They don’t have much money, so her goal was to clear out the locker within 1 month to avoid paying an additional $135 I think it was. Fine, I get that. My own storage locker, which I vowed not to have then vowed not to keep, is $85, which is bad enough. (I think I’ve had it 3 months now.)
So she asked for help. This is how I saw the book. I said yes, and twice I filled my van with her junk, which took two days each time to find a way to dispose of. But she refused to pay for another month. It was costing her, and me, much more to attempt the impossible; to fit 1600 cubic feet more garbage into her car, apartment and life. Something had to give. Lots of somethings.
Oh, so back to my being difficult and our friendship ending. During the two long days we spent together, we swapped stories about Bob, about her husband, and our lives in general. We compared relationships, greif- her parents died recently- and faith. The preacher’s wife and the hard-core realist atheist faggot.
I didn’t bring up faith, and don’t particularly care to hear about it, but I found myself being called on the carpet for my lack of loyalty to this nonsense called religion. There isn’t any part of it, so far as I’m concerned, that can literally be believed by any thinking person. So her sudden eagerness to overcome my objections to this important news only aroused greater hostility in me. Now she was dumping her physical and intellectual garbage on me. Plus, there’s something about religious loyalists that makes them think they are in the right to do this.
Without delving into the problem of evil- how could a loving god allow such suffering?- the more basic truth is that there just is no god. The mere suggestion that it was all part of somebody’s plan to cause Bob to suffer and die would be insulting enough. But to insist on asking me to align with this view while blithely imposing on my time, strength and cargo capacity is more than I will accept. She even sent me a note on Facebook the next day saying, “God hasn’t given up on you yet.” More good news? Not to me.
Here’s the problem with difficult people, and why they are difficult to deal with. They don’t know they’re difficult. They drain the life out of those around them and wonder why people vanish. She even told me that Bob and she would fight and lose touch for long periods of time. She didn’t know why. I think I know. And I’m not playing. Not now. I’m in grief. I have my own problems. I paid money to have my flotsam hauled away. Good riddance.
And by the way, congratulations on saving $135.
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