No Woman, No Cry

I pay for my wafle iron. I walk out of the store. I keep my eyes and ears wide open and on high alert as I walk across the crowded parking lot. Hopefully I will hear the screeching of tires or the gunning engine or maybe even catch the license plate of Endorra’s little pathetic car before she rams it into the backs of my legs and speeds off like a bat out of hell.

But nothing happens. Thank goodness.

But what I find most disturbing about the whole incident is that I worried at all.

The relationship with J. is long dead and the relationships I once had with his family and friends just as buried and decomposing.
I have no obligation to any of the peple who were part and parcel of the whole fiasco.
It’s not like it is with Lars. Where the financial obligations to him, and the fact that we had children together and have a binding custody agreement all keep me tethered to a life I’d gladly leave behind until we are genuinely and naturally parted by death (which just won’t conveniently happen…)

J. and his merry band of sycophant supporters are just specks in my rearview mirror. Left in the dust. I can pretend they don’t exist quite convincingly. Cross them off the Christmas card list. Forget their birthdays. Hell, forget their names.

So what is my problem?

I think I know.

Lets compare my two most abysmal relationship stories, Lars and J.

The story ended badly with both. My happily ever after in shreds.
I learned over years of painful endurance and unthinkable amounts of forgiveness that I could not trust either one of them. That I’d been less important in the long run than their selfish vices.

The difference is this:

While Lars has numerous egregious faults and is not to be trusted to play any game fairly, at the very least he has a shred of pride.

He’ll take what isn’t his and play dirty if it suits him, but only so long as it’s only me who sees what a scumbag he is. Publicly, he want to remain smelling like the proverbial rose, even as he is growing out of a festering pile of steaming cow manure. There are limits to what he’ll do, how low he’ll stoop, if only imposed by the amount of exposure he’ll risk. To me he will be a cad. To the world, he wants to appear to be Prince Charming.

J. on the other hand is so bereft of pride that he will gladly act like a weasel and doesn’t care who observes. He will embarrass himself on his way to humiliating you, but as a loser with quite literally nothing left to lose, it doesn’t matter. There is nothing he won’t risk, because there is nothing to risk. He’s so low he can’t get any lower, so why not play in the sludge of your life and sling a little while you are at it?

And there is the risk to me. With nothing to lose, there are no boundaries. And people with no boundaries are the scariest people of all to me. The sense of decorum and propriety that others have and hold sacred just don’t exist. While some might hesitate to cause a scene, for them there is no reason not to.

Maybe some day I will reach a point of such aloofness that I can approach such threats with a sense of confidence. But for now, I’ll keep my eyes on the road and my hands upon the wheel.