https://www.angelfire.com/zine2/letters/index.html
melindaedison@hotmail.com
Dear Jazee,
Sometimes I just get tired of being manipulated. Remember when I met my pal Anastasia 4 years ago when I was sadsick and she was dreary in her own way. We bonded up and partied and goofed off together. Over time I gave up the wacky behavior and drew myself back into my art. I found my joyous self or at least a facsimile thereof.
She has just gone on drinking whiskey like it is water. Concealing it in Coke seems to work. You wouldn’t even guess that she is drunk. In fact I have seen her drink six tall glasses in a row and she is totally sober, almost a stoic. Without the booze she is snappish. Watch your fingers and toes or she will blow them off.
I have tried to help my friend, tried to pull her out of her sadness, out of the stone she lives in. “Cheer up!” I beg, and she clasps her hands to her ears.
She says, “Unhappiness is my nature. You don’t get it. It has nothing to do with those shockingly appalling things I told you about. I have been this way since I was born. I will never cheer up. The longer you know me the worse I will treat you. I only pretended to be nice in the beginning so you would like me.”
She complains about everything. She says she has no friends except me and although she hates her pal Rita, she has to make nice to her so Rita will dye her waist-length hair the reddish-blonde color that she likes. “No one else knows how to do it, so I guess I have to keep her.”
I have tried to salvage our relationship, but when she had a big fight with you, in my presence, and went stomping off to pout, I realized that her anti-glow sadness isn’t really sadness at all. It is a way to control people. It is manipulation. EITHER YOU WILL PLAY BY MY RULES OR I WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE MISERABLE!
We all live in some kind of big emotional stew. I have my own shittiness. But I can’t go along with being manipulated on a constant basis. I won’t do it. Good-bye to someone who presented a charming chameleon skin that I was intrigued by. I wanted to be her friend. Hell, she is almost married to you, my cousin. Relative or not, I still won’t play her game.
I’m sorry that I introduced the two of you.
It’s time for me to move out of her toxic wasteland. Sorry.
M.A.E.
