Broken People

As I walked perimeter around the bank the other day, I saw my ex-girlfriend Marla walking down the street. She works at the bank that's almost directly across from my job. Seeing her brought memories of my only serious relationship in Smalltown, and reminded me of some of the lessons I've had to learn in both life and business.

We met on what was basically a blind date. By the second date I noticed that she liked to argue. It was like the way most women like to argue, only much worse. Everything could be fine and she would launch into a weird argument over nothing, then apologize about it later. By the end of the first month she said she loved me. By the middle of the second month she was talking about how many kids she would "hypothetically" like to have. She was clearly not what I wanted in a girlfriend, but I continued with it anyway. Besides, I was hoping that her "love" would help me fight what I had.

While we were dating I was fighting an illness that I let grow since 2006. My body had begin to deteriorate and I had gotten scared into taking treatments in Brooklyn. The treatments messed with my body severely, leaving me sometimes with no control of my bodily functions. I thought that having Marla by my side would help me go through it but she was actually adding to my problems with her bizarre antics. After she began questioning the blood in the toilet or on my lips I knew I had to end it. The treatments weren't working and, I felt that if I was gonna go I didn't want Marla around me making my last days a living hell. So I told her the truth about what I had. I simply said that I didn't want to complicate her life with my illness and left it at that. I didn't tell her that she was a miserable person or that I couldn't stand her.

I invited her in my life and she became a misery, but I knew she was miserable from the start. Upon seeing her the other day, I wanted to hate her but I couldn't. I felt rather indifferent. This pattern was the same with Laurie. Like Laurie, I invited her into my life and she did exactly what I knew she would do. I can't move in a tenant or get a girlfriend and expect to change them. It doesn't work that way. On the average, people are who I think they are and must be accepted as such. That's like going to the pound, I get an abused violent dog and it attacks me, so I get mad at the dog. I can't blame the dog for being violent.

Marla didn't want to change or fix her problems, but rather wanted someone to be able to "handle" her; someone whose only job would be to make her happy in her misery. If we had stayed together we probably would have ended up like those couples you see arguing in public at the supermarket. She wanted a bitch who she can argue with and win, then "showcase" him to her friends. To this day I don't know why Marla was the way she was. Maybe she was jealous of her sister and brother doing better than her despite being the oldest. Maybe it was her debts she racked up in college without ever completing her degree. Maybe it was a childhood thing. Maybe it was me and hiding my issues from her, leaving her to think the worst with no confirmation. It doesn't really matter and I thankfully no longer care.

I must have made the right decision in leaving her because, with few months of more treatments after we broke up, I had full remission of my illness. I still feel the effects of the treatments to this day, but I've never been healthier. Marla was a broken person, like Laurie and everyone like them. It's up to me to and my intuition to make sure they aren't my life. Marla's issues were not my problem and, like Laurie, should have never been.