I Must Have Graduated
I received what should have been considered “amazing” news last week. About a year ago, a lunatic, psychotic, mentally ill moron tried to extort me. I won’t get into details as I don’t want to give more power to it, but it caused, at the time, a lot of anxiety, stress, and of course, money. What stemmed from it was also some not so pleasant stuff which for whatever reason took almost an entire YEAR to resolve.
Since I was the victim and not the psychopath that had accused me of wrongdoing, I had nothing to fear, except whatever this particular nut-job (let’s refer to him as “Trashkan”), might do. The more I learned about him, the more I realized he had a history or ripping people off, bullying them, and extorting them. Thanks to our wonderful County of LA, he had seemingly gone unscathed throughout the years as not surprisingly the police wouldn’t do anything. On a side-note when I approached the police to file a police report about the crime that had been committed against me, their response was that they didn’t even want to take a police report as it would cause them to “do more work” and they were trying to “streamline things” (ie. do less work). Thanks so much for your service, btw.
Anyway, after an entire year of this hanging over my head, I had pretty much put it out of my mind. Out of the blue, I finally received a letter this week indicating that the ordeal was complete and I was exonerated in the whole affair (obviously since I was the victim and not Trashkan). Unfortunately, even though I proved the individual had lied to investigators and had concocted the entire story, the didn’t pursue any criminal charges against him (although it is a crime to lie to investigators). Regardless, I knew this experience was for me and my benefit, and not surprisingly, it ended up being just that.
How? Why? Simple. Even just a couple of years ago had this happened to me, I would have been on pins and needles waiting for this thing to wrap up, waiting for this letter ending the entire affair. It would have taken a giant weight off of my chest and made me breath a sigh of relief upon the case ending. Instead, when I got the letter this week, I felt nothing. No happiness, no joy, no sadness, no nothing. It didn’t affect me at all. The success of the story is that I was able to externalize and compartmentalize it. I didn’t let it become me, nor did I let my happiness rest upon it.
It was this week I knew that I had graduated to another level. Still, much more work to of course as that part never ends. But while self-improvement is ongoing and ever-changing, it is gratifying once in a while to see the fruits of your labors.
