Disappointed

Note: It was never my intention to hurt anyone's feelings with this post; on the contrary, I wrote it simply to relieve myself of some of the hurt associated with the unfortunate sequence of events. 


When I was a kid and I did something wrong, I would work myself into a frenzy anticipating how mad my parents would be.  I figured if I thought through the worst possible punishments, it wouldn't be so bad once I actually had to 'fess up to whatever it was that I had done.  Not being huge fans of anger or punishment, my folks were never as harsh on me as I was on myself.  What really hurt, though, was when I disappointed them.

You see, being angry is one thing.  It's a knee-jerk reaction, one of the most basic of emotions.  But disappointment implies something else entirely: that you've somehow managed to hurt the person instead of simply invoking anger.

I've recently been through a tough time with someone who I thought was my friend.  I trusted "They", and I had their back - no questions asked.  Because of a stupid misunderstanding, I was suddenly left out in the cold.  "They" wouldn't talk to me, but had no problem posting ambiguous messages on a certain social networking site, which I can't imagine were referring to anyone but myself.  And those messages were blatantly wrong.


I was never given the opportunity to defend myself.


I was angry.  I'm talking cartoon-style smoke-billowing-from-the-ears angry.  It wasn't fair, and I was M-A-D, mad.


I had thought we'd had a strong enough relationship to have withstood anything, and I was dead wrong.  Over the years, I've lost many friends who I had thought would be around forever.  This one, though, hurt more than any of them, because we'd been through so much together.  "They" was my one friend in real life who I ever felt comfortable enough around to talk honestly and frankly with about The Princess's diagnosis and challenges.


And now that tie is gone.  Friendship over.  Finito.  Over a stupid misunderstanding, coupled with epic stubbornness.


I thought I'd still be mad, but all I can really feel at this point is disappointed.