{"id":1130,"date":"2004-09-20T16:25:28","date_gmt":"2004-09-20T21:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amynews.com\/?p=1120"},"modified":"2015-10-08T17:38:08","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T21:38:08","slug":"denouement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/2004\/09\/denouement\/","title":{"rendered":"Denouement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note:<\/b> As with any grieving process, the 5 stages always seem pretty consistent … Denial<\/a>, Anger<\/a>, Bargaining, Depression<\/a>, Acceptance<\/a> … all have been represented here, except for the Bargaining stage.<\/p>\n

I didn’t do a separate post on Bargaining because I never seriously considered it a possibility. You see, I feel pathetic as a result of making my friends uncomfortable, I can’t help it …it’s just me being me. I don’t give a rip about what people that don’t know me think about me, but when it comes to family and friends … what they think and say, if anything, have an exaggerated importance. And now, any sort of “bargaining” per se, in an attempt to continue active association, would feel like pity to me. The thought of being included not because my company is enjoyed, but because I’m felt sorry for … disgusts me.<\/p>\n

I’m a pretty low maintenance friend … I’m as loyal as they come, I’m willing to do practically anything for you, and … I always think of others before me; Heck, I rarely ask for favors, help, or anything other than for them to just be nice to me.<\/p>\n

So I sure as hell wouldn’t want anyone’s pity. And right now … any suggestion for my inclusion would feel as just that.<\/p>\n

As such, scenarios where I would meet up with them weekly for the pre-bowl tailgate … see them then, and just not continue on in the evening … are offensive to me. I can’t conceive of something much more destructive to me that than engaging in what would feel like pity hang-out time and then being reminded after 45 minutes that I make people important to me too uncomfortable to be seen with me for the rest of the night.<\/p>\n

And as far as possibilities of reconsideration about letting me hang out with them on Wednesday night go … well, there are none. I honestly believe they all knew how hard it would be for me to hear I was no longer wanted around … so I don’t think it was a spur of the moment decision on their part. But once made, and now that the hard part, telling me, is over … there’s no reason I’d ever be asked to return. And again … even if so asked, I can’t imagine it wouldn’t feel like a pity invite and one where they’d hope I really wouldn’t accept. Besides, I’m going to be down and out for a couple of months soon enough anyway recovering from my next surgery, there’s not need to dork things up again.<\/p>\n

Yeah … yeah … yeah … there may be token intermediary attempts … to allow my inclusion in some settings outside of Wednesday … but like summer mid-week gatherings, it’s all nice talk, but such efforts are difficult to coordinate and will quickly become what we’ve always had … a Friday or Saturday night meet-up once or twice a year.<\/p>\n

Nope … this was a grieving process where it didn’t take anyone long to see that the bargaining stage would be short lived … there was just no bargaining to be had,<\/p>\n

The choice was either…<\/p>\n

Inclusion or exclusion,<\/p>\n

And I lost.<\/i><\/p>\n

It’s been a couple of weeks now …<\/p>\n

And things are settling into routine,<\/p>\n

As everyone knew they would:<\/p>\n

Phone calls and e-mails early in the week to confirm Wednesday attendance,<\/p>\n

Wednesday afternoon calls and emails to confirm tailgate location and attendance,<\/p>\n

Tailgate from 5:20 – 6:20 pm,<\/p>\n

Group drive to the alley,<\/p>\n

Bowl, drink, talk, and laugh for 2 1\/2 – 3 hours,<\/p>\n

Not necessarily in that order.<\/p>\n

Drink, talk, laugh, argue, kareoke for 1 1\/2 – 3 hours.<\/p>\n

Not necessarily in that order.<\/p>\n

Follow-up e-mails the next day recounting the previous night’s activities.<\/p>\n

Rinse and repeat the follow week.<\/p>\n

Though …<\/p>\n

None of that includes me.<\/p>\n

Now that I’ve been removed from involvement …<\/p>\n

I’ve also been eliminated from the e-mail lists,<\/p>\n

Call lists,<\/p>\n

Plans lists.<\/p>\n

It’s a natural consequence of the disassociation.<\/p>\n

In fact as time goes on …<\/p>\n

As each week passes …<\/p>\n

The memory of me will fade further,<\/p>\n

And the legitimacy of the decision to exclude me …<\/p>\n

Will make more sense to each of them,<\/p>\n

Most likely eventually becoming a collective, unanimous agreement that it was the right thing to do.<\/p>\n

It might of already happened.<\/p>\n

And it won’t be because they’ll remember how uncomfortable they were at the thought just before D-day …<\/p>\n

Of being seen with me by others they who know who I was,<\/p>\n

Not at all.<\/p>\n

It’ll be because in their minds …<\/p>\n

History will be rewritten,<\/p>\n

Convincing themselves …<\/p>\n

It was the best thing for me.<\/p>\n

The alley isn’t an environment where she needed to let others know her personal life,<\/p>\n

It’s not that the opinions of the other bowlers were more important to us than her feelings, safety was the issue here …<\/p>\n

And she was being foolish to think she could endure what not being stealth in the alley would entail.<\/i><\/p>\n

Sure,<\/p>\n

It’s a rationalization …<\/p>\n

But it’s the way it’ll play itself out.<\/p>\n

It’s just human behavior.<\/p>\n

And ya know what?<\/p>\n

Though I’m convinced it was the wrong decision …<\/p>\n

That their lives would be richer had my inclusion been allowed to continue,<\/p>\n

And my life more rewarding than will now be possible …<\/p>\n

I’ll eventually embrace that very same rationalization.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Epilogue:<\/b> That was the last of my posts in the Dismissing A Suspect<\/u> storyline. See … I told you that Episode 3 would start out with excitement and had some plot twists !!!! Though trust me, this one surprised even me !! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The way I had seen Episode 3 opening was that:<\/p>\n

I’d go to to bowling, all nervous as can be;<\/p>\n

The word would spread very quickly, as my friends feared; and,<\/p>\n

There’d be some issues, some minor excitement for sure, but not as bad as my friends worried.<\/p>\n

Then, as lousy luck would have it, a guy from my past was in the bowling alley that first night and would catch wind of the word. Eventually … next February, he would technically become my first boyfriend.<\/p>\n

Anyways … the money people behind Episode 3 apparently decided that this was a much more exciting opening than a budding romance. Bastards !! \ud83d\ude42 Though I guess it just goes to show … deity gospels are just like life … sometimes you just have no control over what happens !! \ud83d\ude42 <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: As with any grieving process, the 5 stages always seem pretty consistent … Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance … all have been represented here, except for the Bargaining stage. I didn’t do a separate post on Bargaining because I never seriously considered it a possibility. You see, I feel pathetic as a result…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":139,"label":"General"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Amy","author_link":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/author\/amy\/"},"comment_info":12,"category_info":[{"term_id":139,"name":"General","slug":"general","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":143,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":775,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":139,"category_count":775,"category_description":"","cat_name":"General","category_nicename":"general","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}