What’s worse than being told “the check is in the mail?”
Nothing is worse, especially when you earmark that money for a specific transaction and your time has now expired. It is absolute torture to wait for a check. First off, who the hell in the 21st century even uses checks?
No one, that’s who. I don’t even have a checkbook. Well maybe people that are trying to bluff others about a payment. Maybe that’s who a check is handy for. Every day. Every dog bark, brings me to the front door to see if it’s there. For a month, it has not been. This routine is absolutely exhausting. I hesitate leaving the house for fear I’ll miss a delivery. I’ve forgone showering thinking I might be unavailable for this magical dough.
Now I do wanna preface this all by saying that I’m not desperate for money. It’s just the principle of it. You provide a service sans contract based on faith and trust. Well that’s mistake numero uno. You’re vague about the terms of payment since you’re uncomfortable discussing that stuff, especially in a not for profit situation. If it happened with a real employer, you have actions to take. In this situation, you just have trust.
Well trust goes south quickly for me, and I’m sure quite a few others. Trust is what allowed you to agree to something without discussing the terms. The commitment was based on trust.
My fault. My mistake.
I’m writing this for therapeutic reasons as I gotta move on. The trust factor is already broken. It’s not gonna mend miraculously once THE CHECK ARRIVES, if that’s even an option at this point. So will I trust anyone again? Sure. Will I forget a mishap like this … not on your life. I’m a Scorpio. Forgive, maybe. Forget, never. And that’s not exactly a healthy path for me to stay on but I can’t change routes now. Impossible.
Now everyone’s experienced some wrongdoing or bad behavior in their life. This episode is certainly not my first time at the rodeo, as Joan Crawford said to the Board of Directors of Pepsi Cola. (Man didn’t you just love that fur hat she was wearing?). I’ve worked through the hard part: there’s no check. It’s not a life changing event. But now comes the hard work. Will I ever again trust anyone about anything? That’s something that dwindles quickly. It can be a person. A grocery store item that’s moldy. A car salesman. Well now that’s an ALWAYS. I’ll reserve trust, store it up, and dole it out on an as per basis. I’ll have to develop criteria that I probably should have already had in place. Is it foolish to believe finding the good in people is a standard? Am I the only idiot walking around with a KICK ME sign taped to my ass?
My parents. I saw their circle of friends shrink in their golden years. Their enthusiasm for entertaining like they did in their prime became limited. They shared with me that a circle of friends gets tested with time. Perhaps because people die. Perhaps because your tolerance of bullshit hits rock bottom. That’s understandable. I get it. But what isn’t understandable is discerning what your initial trust factor or friendship was based on in the first place. Why didn’t you catch those signs early on in the relationship? I guess I do/did assume the best in people and man does that assumption blow up as you travel down your path. 
Truth doesn’t just mean happy flattering truth. That’s easy. OH I JUST LOVE THAT HAT. It can be passionate truth. It can be critical truth that’s honest and hard to digest. But whatever it is, isn’t an act founded in truth worth a lot more than a lie? So to all the people that have ever betrayed someone’s trust by employing bad behavior instead of honesty, this one’s for you.
Withholding truth to avoid risking being mean, that’s called being a coward.