Befuddled

An incident, similar to an RBI in effect but originating from an entirely different source, occurred ten years ago. I wouldn't be thinking about it except that as a human being, anniversaries do that to you. They make you think and remember. So ten years ago there is a thing that happens that is like a star going nova in the vicinity of a planetary system called me, a planet called my heart. Having advanced no further in advanced planetary and solar monitoring systems than our own Earth is now, I had no choice but to watch the resultant shock wave approach. When the graviton wave reached the atmosphere, all the oxygen burned off and then the planet cracked, charred and in classic Warner fashion, disintegrated into a pile of cinders. Oops.
In the course of this cosmic disaster, I lost two best friends, unconnected with a friend I had just connected with and bore the brunt of misdirected and unjustified anger because someone had lied 12 years earlier.
My heart, that disintegrated pile of cinders, never reconstituted itself like Wylie Coyote. The event that caused the solar implosion was my detection and the confrontation of the person who lied. I had thought there would be a sorry and we would go our own way or move forward together. But I was dismissed. In writing. In no uncertain terms. And the devastation has been great.
But now, with a 20 year reunion looming, the liar, the accomplice and the counselor credited with the death of a dwarf star wish me what they describe as heartfelt wishes for my happiness and good health along with the desire to see me... dare I apply the quote?... live long and prosper. I have not prospered. I have contrived to orient my life to the beliefs of those around me... even the ones who dismissed me so brutally. I only realized it within the realm of the blog and the work I am doing with Verta. They left me. Brutally left. I have not prospered. I have not been happy. I have felt like I have not deserved any of what they have all wished for me this past month because they have told me that I could not deserve it. I kept their secrets. I did not try to reveal the truth even to expunge the lie and remove the stain of it from my person.

I don't want to go and endure the same taunts and ridicules as last time. The lie is still in place. It is now an epic tale of deceit and sorrow, a legend among the people of my youth. I am still stained. And the innocent still strive to protect themselves and the victim from the lie that wears my guise. I do not want to go, continuing to bear an other's guilt. But I have no voice. These decades of silence will not be undone in a night. Those who convivially invite me now were those who destroyed me then. How do I trust? How do I know that I am safe from another form of torture? What have they planned for this event?

I know it's melodramatic to portray it thus. But I can't be more vague and tell the story. As it is, it only sounds like a treatment for a new fantasy movie. The fantasy is that I go, I tell, I am forgiven, he takes me back and renounces those who lied to him. Then they plead forgiveness and mercy. If I were heartless, I would not give it. But real life won't go like my fantasy. And perhaps that is what I want... the fantasy of setting the world right. I want to be the Reconstituter of Dead Planets, not the Eater of Souls that I have been portrayed as.

But I am still befuddled. I was told by these people who want to see me at the reunion to step off. I have it, as I said, in writing. There could be no more language plainer than "We are through forever." And now they wonder that I have been so silent. Why do they want me now? Is it just to feel like the reunion has accomplished something? If they cared wouldn't they have changed their minds by now? Why would a reunion make so much difference in so strongly held an opinion?

And why do I care still? It's been 22 years since the plot the lie wrote came to its painful climax, 24 since the lie was conceived and its course set in motion. Isn't that enough time to get over someone? Isn't it time I let this whole thing go?

Freud said that we are never more profoundly unhappy (depressed) than when we lose love. The lie had many participants, friends and family, friends that I held closer to my bosom than family. And not one person I knew then has ever acknowledged the truth. That means that I cannot employ any of my digits when counting the people I could trust then or do trust now. How do you recover from that? How do you get over that?