‘How’s things going with the roomate?’ S asked, and when I told them, they said, ‘I still think you’re being unreasonable.’

I breifly considered trying to explain.

I might have asked how S would feel if they’d trusted someone enough to let them into their home and life, only to have that someone ‘thank’ them by messing with their investments, livelyhood, or relationships?

‘How would you feel,’ I wanted to say, ‘if, even as they planned to take further advantage of you, they had the audacity to act as though you were the one ‘wronging’ them…?’ And… ‘how would you take it if the people who should best understand and care about your situation were the people who were most apt to support the person screwing you… to question your right to say ‘enough’?’

Then, I realized that S’s statment meant that they weren’t willing to – or capable of – acknowledging the emotional and financial impact of things on me and that it’d be useless. As with the roommate in question, I could waste my breath painting them a picture of my reality, but it wasn’t gonna’ do any good because they were both so focussed on their egos that they just couldn’t ‘see’ beyond them.

So, I thanked S for that opinion and simply stated that – despite it – I would do whatever was necessary to protect myself and ‘let it go’.

Neither laughing nor crying would do any good at that point, and all I could do was pray that no one ever treated S the way this roomate had treated me. I also said a quick prayer that I’d be able to set aside the fact that S’s failure to acknowledge this had hurt me so deeply and often and to love them despite it.

Thank the gods my capacity to love is as boundless as my patience because I do not want to have to ‘school’ S too!