Sharla Dawn Gorder

I hate feeling like this—cranky and ridiculous.

 

Someone was really mean.  Well, that’s how I see it anyway.

A close friend of mine got a really nasty e-mail the other day, kind of out of the blue, from someone she thought was a friend.  She was so bummed.  I learned about it from another friend, and it distressed me so much, I just couldn’t get it out of my head.

The note was passive aggressive in its sarcasm (sarcasm usually is), accusatory, and cowardly.  My friend responded—not surprisingly, knowing her character—firmly, but calmly and with kindness.

I, on the other hand, wanted to blast a nasty retort to the bully and give her a piece of my mind.  How dare she insult and demean one of the kindest, most ethical people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing!  It’s just wrong—a wrong that begs to be righted, in my opinion.

But here’s the thing.  It’s not my hula-hoop.  It’s really none of my business.  My friend is a big girl and doesn’t need me on the playground with her fighting her battles.  She never asked for my input in the first place, and she seems to be moving on already.

Me, not so much.  I’ve been having the hardest time letting it go.  It’s been making me cranky and ridiculous.  I’ve been plotting revenge.  Maybe y’all can help me.

But first, let me explain.  You may be wondering why I’ve got my panties all in a wad over someone else’s conflict.  The easy answer is that I really love my friend, and when you love someone, it’s just so hard to see them mistreated.  And that’s certainly a part of it.  But there’s another, less noble reason for my obsession with this:  I’ve been there, and recently.  This triggered some very unpleasant memories and emotions for me.

Just a couple of years ago I was the recipient of a similar correspondence.  For me, it was a text.  Actually, my little hate-note, was both better and worse than my friend’s.  Better, because it wasn’t as passive aggressive.  It was, at least, honest. Worse, because it was so overtly aggressive.  It was a little scary.

The person, let’s call her Anita, who sent it to me was angry at me for backing away from our relationship.  We had been friends a short time when an errant text from her, clearly not intended for me, divulged to me things about this person’s character that were very disturbing.  The miss-sent text also revealed that she had planned to involve me, without my knowledge, in some shenanigans I wanted no part of.

I tried to back away subtly, but after a couple of months going round and round with her, I finally had to come right out and say it—“This relationship doesn’t feel healthy to me.  I truly want good things for you and your family, but I’ve got to bow out.”

Oh, my.  This did not go over well at all.  Oh, no.  Her response was immediate and ruthless.  I still have that text on my phone, a reminder—to myself and to anyone who will  listen—that what you text, e-mail, tweet, or otherwise commit to cyberspace is forever available for people like me to refer to when writing little stories like this one.   Ha!

I’m looking at the actual text on my phone as I write this.  You may think that it is immature and perhaps masochistic for me to have kept this thing so long, and you may be right.  But it really does serve as a great reminder to me to “taste my words before I spit them out.”  My kids, my husband, my siblings, and my friends have the same technological capabilities as I.  If they’re saving my texts or e-mails, I want them to be good.  And by good, I mean, Webster’s definition:  morally excellent; virtuous.

Anita clearly had no such filter.  No filter at all, it seems.  The text is too vulgar to transcribe word for word here in my sweet little blog, but I’ll give you a couple of the PG highlights.  She accused me of being “hard-hearted” and “unforgiving” and let me know that she had “no use” for people like me—“Don’t flatter yourself thinking that I want to be your friend.  I don’t.”

And then this little post-script:  “FYI:  You are not as nice as you think you are.”

Ha!  She sure told me!  I’m still not sure exactly what it means, but I got told. I was rattled.  Truly unnerved.  I would like to say that I was able to shakeshakeshake it off in a perky little dance number, but it was very, very disturbing.

And hilarious.  Disturbing and hilarious.  Disturbilarious!  Very few insults can withstand a blitzkrieg of humor. I didn’t know it yet, but my troops were standing by, ready to storm the beach with me.

I had become fixated on her parting words to me, the sharp, poison-tipped little PS in her text:  You are not as nice as you think you are FYI.  I knew that she knew that, of all the slurs she could hurl at me, this one had the potential to hurt me the most.  Yes, even more than “hard-hearted and unforgiving.”  She knew me well enough to know what some of my deepest held values are, and that I had been trying (like the Dalai Lama, but without quite as much success apparently) to embrace kindness as my religion.

I recall some suggestions outlined in Deepak Chopra’s The Book of Secrets, describing specific, active ways to actually practice kindness and other spiritual aspirations.  Under the Giving caption, he recommended that I “compliment someone for a quality that I know the individual values in him-or-herself.”   That’s if I want to give to others.  If I want to assault and devalue others, if I want to take away, then the opposite approach works nicely.  Just ask Anita.  She was perceptive enough to know what mattered to me and mean enough to know precisely how to go for the jugular.

I’m not as nice as I think I am?  Well, this is perplexing, truly.  Since I’d never spent a whole lot of time quantifying my niceness or lack thereof, I didn’t know my baseline.  I needed to know how nice I think I am in order to know how nice I’m not.  Sheesh.  It’s complicated being me.

And also a lot of fun.  Processing this whole thing was a little tricky.  Of course my husband was privy to all of it; it’s always a good idea to keep your Knight in Shining Armor in the loop.  Still, the details of my little saga had not been approved for general audiences.  Oh, no.  And even for the purposes of this little story I’ve had to incorporate a five-second delay of sorts and about a million bleeps.  Besides, I live in this small town.  No-one else needed to be burned by Anita’s recklessness.  Maybe it could end with me.

Maybe, kinda sorta.

The following Tuesday, during an exercise class that I teach, I found myself blurting out, “You know, I’m not as nice as I think I am!” after the class let out a collective, good-natured moan when I instructed them to go to their mats for pushups.  They hate push-ups.  But they love me.  And, of course, I had to explain.  Kinda sorta.

When I told them about the text—even leaving out all the juicy parts and the identity of the hater—they were already suiting up to go to war with me.  But their weapons were soft.  No pointed poison darts.  No retaliatory missiles.  No, it was like a pillow fight.  Lots of goofy energy and laughter and nobody gets hurt.

And now, everyone I know, everyone, has been warned.  I’m not as nice as I think I am.  If I asked Ted to put his dishes in the dishwasher—You know, Sharla, you’re not as nice as you think you are.  If I needed Taylor to move his car too early in the morning—Mom, you’re not as nice as you think you are.  If I forgot to call my friend, Kelly, back—Girl, you’re not as nice as you think you are. 

It took a while for this whole thing to go from horribly hurtful to hilarious, but I have to laugh when I think about it now.  Kelly even had stationary made for me that says, “Why yes, I’m as nice as I think I am!”

So, you may ask, if I’m all nice and everything, why do I want revenge on the person who sent my friend that ugly e-mail last week?  Good question.  I’ve got a good answer, and this is where you come in.

Marcus Aurelius wrote, “To refrain from imitation is the best revenge…the best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”

That is why I rode my bicycle up to Flounder’s gift shop Monday and bought five postcards. I came home and wrote two or three sentences on each card expressing my admiration and appreciation for five people in my life.  The one you see here is to Melendy.  She was my best friend when I lived in LA.  I haven’t seen her in years.  I adore her.  I miss her, but she has no way of knowing that unless I tell her.  Another is to a housekeeper we had years ago that had become a part of our family, whom I loved, but have lost contact with.  Another is to one of you who will be reading this before you get your card in the mail.  It has seashells on it. One is to my parents, newly residing in heaven.  I’m not sure about the postage on that one, but something tells me it’ll get there quicker than any of the others.  And the last one is to that friend who was hurt last week by the unkindness of another.

Do I think I can, with my little gesture, mitigate the hard feelings my friend may feel?  Maybe, maybe not.  But I do think I can pour good energy on top of bad.  Five times more good energy.  That’s something.

And if you’ll join me, we can flood our respective little worlds with good energy and love—Webster’s definition.  Drown out all that other crap.  Let’s do it!

I tell you what:  For anyone who takes me up on this simple challenge—to send five cards to five people in your life, and tell them something wonderful about themselves—I will give one copy of my book to you when it’s released and send another to one of the five folks on your list.  Or I’ll bake you some cookies.  You choose.

Post a picture on my blog or on FB, (or both, if you can take the time) of the fronts of the cards.  I’ll take your word that you’ve written a thoughtful sentence or two on the other side, and let me know how this felt for you.  I’m curious.  I have done this little exercise before, when the world felt really scary to me, and the act of simply recognizing all the good, all the love, that was still available to me even during that dark time, was an amazing catharsis for me.

Try it.  You have all of February to complete the challenge.  Maybe you will send five Valentines on the 14^th.  You can put a stamp on an index card and send it.  My friend, Caren, once sent me a stamped, addressed coconut with a list of ten things she loved about me and our friendship, written in black sharpie right on the shell.  I still have it.

Don’t overthink it.  Don’t underestimate its impact.  It may seem corny. You may feel really awkward putting compliments in writing.  You may not have time. (FYI, it took me less than 40 minutes to address, stamp, and write all five.)  You may not remember how to spell. (Type it on your phone or tablet first. Ha!)  But, please, do it anyway.  Help me get my vengeance.

And please, click the share button right now if you like this idea and want to get some of your FB friends involved.