Doug and I were invited to a friend's birthday party that night, and I was dragging around the ugly little "plus one" that only we knew about...but since it doesn't eat or drink too much, I didn't think it would be a big deal to leave it off the guest list.
Ever since the Grim Reaper had put my number on speed dial, our moods were less than festive. But we showed up and worked the room with cocktails in hand and fake smiles plastered on our faces. All I wound up doing though, was comparing myself to my happy, non disease stricken friends. I was after all, the one bad apple out of the whole big bunch, and I felt horribly out of place.
So, after about 45 minutes' worth of "hello's" and "wow-you-look-great-so-do-you's", we left the party very early…
mentally high-fiving ourselves for not falling apart.
Later, we were sitting in the living room...dazed and quiet.
After our uncomfortable, first post-cancer-diagnosis-public-outing...I got to thinking...
how in the Hell am I going to let all of these people in on my situation?
What is the proper etiquette for this kind of stuff?
Surely, the "Ann Landers" of the World must've published a nifty, politically correct blueprint for it somewhere?
Then, suddenly...I just started to write...and the words flowed surprisingly easy:
"Hi Everyone,
Doug and I have something to tell you, and though it may sound terrible, we are actually quite 'happy' in a way (for lack of a better word).
I have very recently been diagnosed with Stage1 invasive breast cancer. I feel very fortunate that I found it, and the two of us are gearing up for the fight. I will be having a double mastectomy with reconstruction on March 11th...followed by chemotherapy and other fun stuff.
We weren't sure how to tell you, and we hope that letting you know in this way was appropriate. This next year will be extremely tough, and we know that some of you will have questions and some of you won't know what to say...and that's okay. Don't ever feel like you have to treat us any different or tiptoe around. It is what it is.
Hey, we're still the same Vollmers! We're so shallow we can't even take cancer seriously! Besides, I'm getting that boob job I always wanted!
Love you guys,
j9 & DV"
I showed this to my husband, and he thought that my humorous approach would be well received.
He especially liked the mention of us being "shallow", because after all…
that was the word most often used by our former friends/current neighbors to describe us.
Bear with me please…
I must rant.
(it's a doozie)
(Not kidding)
As a couple, we have always had close friendships with our neighbors…
and still do.
(I'm just a lot more cautious now)
While my extremely extroverted husband continues to "never meet a stranger"...
when I meet new people these days, I'm slow to "let them in".
(if ever fully, at all)
I not-so-quickly learned how to construct some pretty solid walls of deterrence, after having barely survived a recent, emotionally devastating "Frenemy" attack…
one that my husband managed to sail through, virtually unbothered.
(I envy that)
Anyway, back in the late 90's/ early 2000's, there was a big group of about 20 of us who got together just about every single weekend…
boating and house hopping…
laughing and drinking…
playing games...
always partying like drunk and goofy college kids.
During this time, we had become very close to a a husband and wife who live across the small canal from us. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that we had become "BFF's" within that large group of friends.
I looked up to them both.
To me, they were the bee's knees.
They were fun, intelligent, giving people…
incredibly easy to hang with...
UNTIL…
without any provocation...
the wife suddenly turned on me.
BAM!
After 3 years of what felt like a good, solid friendship...
I found myself blindsided, and became tortured.
I was absolutely miserable in her company.
I was rarely in the mood to know how "stupid, shallow and immature" she thought that I...
and everything I
owned,
went to,
wore,
did,
purchased,
listened to,
drove,
watched,
read,
said
and ate was.
and still do.
(I'm just a lot more cautious now)
While my extremely extroverted husband continues to "never meet a stranger"...
when I meet new people these days, I'm slow to "let them in".
(if ever fully, at all)
I not-so-quickly learned how to construct some pretty solid walls of deterrence, after having barely survived a recent, emotionally devastating "Frenemy" attack…
one that my husband managed to sail through, virtually unbothered.
(I envy that)
Anyway, back in the late 90's/ early 2000's, there was a big group of about 20 of us who got together just about every single weekend…
boating and house hopping…
laughing and drinking…
playing games...
always partying like drunk and goofy college kids.
During this time, we had become very close to a a husband and wife who live across the small canal from us. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that we had become "BFF's" within that large group of friends.
I looked up to them both.
To me, they were the bee's knees.
They were fun, intelligent, giving people…
incredibly easy to hang with...
UNTIL…
without any provocation...
the wife suddenly turned on me.
BAM!
After 3 years of what felt like a good, solid friendship...
I found myself blindsided, and became tortured.
I was absolutely miserable in her company.
I was rarely in the mood to know how "stupid, shallow and immature" she thought that I...
and everything I
owned,
went to,
wore,
did,
purchased,
listened to,
drove,
watched,
read,
said
and ate was.
Even my little house became a victim of her assaults!
What was such a cozy, welcoming little paradise to us, really bothered her.
The palms and lush, tropical greenery made our backyard...
"too cluttered"...
and it...
"Aaaaack! Rocked her world".
She voiced that the deeply pigmented, interior paint colors I had chosen were "too dark" for her liking, so she declared that our house was "depressed and unhappy".
Simply because I close my blinds at night, she once asked me...
and I quote...
"{snort} what are you hiding over there?"
(un-snort)
Seasonal allergies often have me...and my sniffly, leaky-faucet-of-a-nose...visiting restrooms to blow it a lot more often than I would like, and
one year...at an outdoor Spring party, I must have excused myself from conversation to run to the bathroom one too many times for her liking as well.
She quickly stepped close and stopped me abruptly by grabbing my arm...demanding to know why I kept going to the bathroom. Her snarky "um hmm" made it crystal clear that she wasn't accepting of my answer.
I just knew she had come to her own conclusion…
and my gut…as usual…was right.
Finding out from friends
(years later)
she in fact, did not believe that I had allergies and was going to the bathroom to simply blow my nose.
That idiot assumed that I was snorting cocaine!!!
(LOLOLOLOLOL...LLLL. yep)
She actually tattled (shhhhh)... to the few neighbors who would listen...that my husband and I did drugs with our new friends...a laid back, younger couple who had recently moved in to the neighborhood.
(who she instantly disapproved of for whatever reason).
The length of my hair was "inappropriate for my age"…
my tattoos were "trashy and ugly"…
and the lyrics to the music I enjoy must be "contributing to my quiet, unsociable tendencies".
Blah.
Blah.
Blah.
All of this crap…
and SO very much more…
pained my head on a regular basis.
I found myself under full assault from this woman who loved to publicly announce that she was "a good person" who "liked who she was".
(slow. clap)
She proudly proclaimed to everyone that she was...
(drumroll please)
"THE most thoughtful and caring person in our group".
(I call bullshit)
Before long...there was a perma-smirk of pride plastered across her face.
Alas!
She had succeeded in positioning herself as the trusted go-to advice guru in the neighborhood...
regularly gloating that she had obviously "missed her calling" and should have become a licensed Psychiatrist.
Admittedly disappointed that my husband and I were not two of her willing patients, she would shame me almost weekly for not "dropping by to share" with her, all of the issues I must be having in my life.
She was incredibly bothered that I would never "reach out" to her like all of the other women were doing.
Absolutely everything about who I was infuriated her.
From the top of my cowlick to the tips of my fat, knobby man-toes...
my mere existence on the planet seemed to stoke a fire deep within the bowels of her nastiness.
I was pummeled...privately, as well as in public...with frequent outpourings of vicious, taunting rhetoric.
I mean, come one!
There were others in our friend group who would engage her in spirited back and forth's!
Beaming, she would squeal with delight saying that they were "so sassy, and she loved it".
But whenever it was my turn to defend myself against her rabid, unsolicited opinions...
the response would be a guttural snort...followed by her trademark, condescending ca-"Aaaack"-le....sirens that always alerted me to her disapproval of everything that was me.
Claws out, she would swiftly rip into me.
My retorts were never "sass"...I was simply "stupid, immature and shallow".
As the years progressed, I felt more and more like an outsider amongst (supposed) friends.
To me, it felt as if everyone disliked having me around almost as much as she did.
That bitch ran the show.
Big time.
Even my husband did nothing in her presence to help me deal with her drama.
ABSOLUTELY.
NOTHING.
I was the abused little puppy with sad eyes...beaten down.
Wishing so badly to be rescued, as I sat curled up...injured and whimpering in a ditch.
Mercifully though, the dramatic moments between the two of us never lasted longer than a really bad case of the hiccups. My introverted personality wouldn't allow it.
My voice would inevitably quiver…
my eyes would fill with liquid frustration...
and my belly would knot.
Cursed with what had become my social life…nothing would change as long as I lived in a house that was so close to theirs.
My fingers were crossed that in the very near future, I was going to witness a magical moment. That witch was going to "get hers", right?
Surely she had logged enough miles on the C U Next Tuesday karma punch card by now?
I was bullied quite often in Jr and Sr High school, but this was ridiculous!
Stuck in an Introvert's Hell on Earth, I hid behind a well cultivated social mask...
acting grateful for just being allowed to breathe her air.
Because I didn't want to catch anymore shit from her than I was already getting, I made extra special, doubly sure that my husband and I gushed and coo'ed over EVERYTHING they ever did "for" or "with" us.
Lord help my fate if the two of us didn't bow down and sing praises for weeks.
acting grateful for just being allowed to breathe her air.
Because I didn't want to catch anymore shit from her than I was already getting, I made extra special, doubly sure that my husband and I gushed and coo'ed over EVERYTHING they ever did "for" or "with" us.
Lord help my fate if the two of us didn't bow down and sing praises for weeks.
I had also become a pro at declining invitations...
filling almost an entire half of a decade with fake "colds", "hangovers" and "gym injuries." Successfully able to avoid many of the neighborhood gatherings and parties where I knew she'd be in all of her arrogant, rancid glory.
More times than he cares to remember, my husband would have to console me, as I would sob in disbelief that a grown woman...in her 40's...could enjoy being such a "Mean Girl".
He and I had gone back and forth so many times…
me, so passionately...
about putting the house up for sale.
I wanted nothing more than to get away from her.
He thought it would be such a shame to "let the terrorist win".
The old saying, "with friends like that, who needs enemies" couldn't have been more true.
So, we were beyond ecstatic when she and her husband removed themselves from our lives.
Out of the blue, we received an email just before Christmas 2006, telling us that they were "burning the bridge" with us and 2 other couples in our group of friends and neighbors.
They said that it took them over two months to compose the perfectly written, three page letter to sum up the many problems that THEY had been having with SIX of us over the years.
Not gonna lie…my misery enjoyed the company.
All that time, I had thought that I was the only, lonely victim of her abuse.
Turns out that I had been so self absorbed in my own Hell, that I had failed to notice that two of my friends were up to their necks with her crap...waging battles of their own.
(so, let me get this right)There in black and white, I was to understand that (in a nutshell) we were all "too shallow to take anything seriously"! And they felt that "life was too short to be silly all the time".
They also went on to say that we had failed to show "adequate appreciation for all that they had done for us over the years."
Now, we're certainly not "shallow" per say...we can swim around in the deep end whenever it's appropriate, but jeez… we've known way before any of this cancer crap that life is too damn short to be serious ALL the time.
We were also of the assumption that simple, heartfelt thank you's and appreciation dinners (combined with HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of dollars' worth of gift cards) were MORE than enough to show our gratitude for their help with our home remodeling over the years.
(the nerve)
Immediately after they sent the email, the wife stopped her bullying...though she got a kick out of being dramatic, and she'd make a show out of turning her back to us whenever she saw us outside.
But her husband…
who had always been kind…
HE picked up the reins and became the bully!!!
(yep. you can't make this shit up)
(yep. you can't make this shit up)
This man spent over a year...
after they sent us the "break up letter"...
staring at us from their backyard whenever we were outside.
The psycho would briskly walk to their seawall (or to their dock) and stand facing us.
His arms crossed and jaw clenched, shaking his head slowly in obvious disgust, and hatred.
I could see his bouncing pecs from 40 feet away.
Even more unnerving was the day when he and his wife saw me walking in a parking lot.
He purposefully curbed their vehicle to follow me in to the TJMaxx.
Angrily, he marched through the doors…
his eyes glaring...
never shifting from mine.
He stopped beside me…
leaning down within inches of my face, to snarl out a gravelly, spittle laden "hello Janine". Then...turning on his heels...he stomped right back out to their truck.
The hair on my arms stood up!
Wide eyed, I looked at the startled lady next to me, and could only shrug.
During this same year, he twice followed slowly behind a neighborhood friend in his truck as she walked her dogs. We assumed it was simply to make her feel uncomfortable since she "chose our side".
But to this day, he continues to subtly… yet regularly... harass one of the other couples involved in the breakup email every time he sees them at the gym.
Our former friends have been asked more than once what had "sparked the match" that burned the proverbial bridge.
What exactly did all of us do?
They only say, "they know what they did".
(nope. haven't a damn clue, folks))
We have all racked our brains...and to this day, no one has any idea what happened to get us all to that point.
I couldn't give two shits now.
I couldn't give two shits now.
(the consensus it that they're mentally ill...a text book pair of narcissists...her, to the extreme)
So...the Hubs held strong, and we still live in our cute little house...
now it's made even cozier by an even richer hued color scheme on its painted interior walls…
and the back of the house is hugged in an even thicker privacy cloak, with even more perfectly cluttered palms.
Rock that, you crazy witch.
(I refuse to call her a "bitch", since she said that word, when used to describe a woman, meant that the woman was "strong, independent, and opinionated.")
Vomit.
We are THRILLED to be done with the drama created by those two asshats.
And with the exception of my cancer diagnosis, life is soooooo much more enjoyable now.
The announcement of my cancer diagnosis would be in everyone's inboxes the next day.
...here's a link to the reason why I told you that story...
it's my "right" as a cancer patient to release my pent up stresses in to the Universe so that my body and soul can heal and become healthy and strong…
…"If you like to write, write about your anger; write about your hate; write about how hurt you are; write about how afraid you really are. Journal about what happened and how it is affecting you today. Write about what you have lost, or what you have never had that has hurt you so deeply. Feel the feeling! Don’t be afraid of it!"
How to Identify and Release Your Emotions…
