Karin

A while a go, probably six months or so I met this woman in the laundry room (we have one laundry room for two houses) from the other house. I like being friendly and I often say to people to come over and check out my little garden paradise if they like to chat a bit.

So this woman comes over. She is obviously not really well. She is really good with cats so she cut my cats claws a few times, and I pay her. Then she started to give me little gifts. And then some days later. she'd demand money for those "gifts". I thought it was sort of funny though. Maybe I laughed a bit behind her back. Maybe I didn't take her seriously. Maybe I just thought it was nice to have someone to hang out with who lives just next door. It became more clear for each time I met her, that she is a person of secrets and anger. To talk to her was like walking right next to the cliff. Asking questions and she'd snap. Not asking questions and she'd snap. It became a bit confusing for me what she was all about. I am a bit ashamed but I've been studying her quite a lot. She is a 47-year old woman with no friends. Not one single friend. Not childhood friends, not teenage friends. Not friends from USA where she lived for ten years. She has a family whom she never ever see. She'd go nuts if I asked carefully something, like, about her parents, where they live perhaps. She'd give me a black look and say that I shouldn't ask about her like that. After a while I guess ,I was painting out a rather generalizing idea on her and who she was.

During my holidays and during days when I've worked, she's been in my flat, using my internet (she refuse to have internet at home) and using my stuff.

She is a real oddball, but I always had a thing for them (us).

Then suddenly, on Monday, I heard my mail coming in early in the morning. It was a letter from her, with my keys. She said that she wanted nothing to do with me anymore and I should pay her for more stuff that she had given me without asking first. So I paid her, and then I just wrote a text saying that I had no idea what she was so angry about and that I found it a bit dramatic with the letter but that I had no problems with her and she could just come over whenever. And then she started to write me emails. Nasty, bitter, demanding, angry letters. I was stupid at first, telling her about how imperfect I am, and how I just thought she should had told me when she felt hard done by me. That I just wish that she is well and that I think that I was just getting to know her and that I thought of her as a nice person.

I got even more angry emails. I wanted to not reply but I kept doing it, just saying the same things over and over. I don't know what I did to you, please do tell me. I am imperfect and deeply flawed and isn't everyone?

Then she kept going. It was as if I put fuel on the scene she was playing out for us.

So I just started to reply "Okay, lets just say that" to her mails. And she just went crazy, and now I've destroyed her life.

Phew. Isn't I the lucky one? Now I should carry her destroyed life.

I am far from a good friend to the ones that I do have. I don't call, I don't visit, but I love them deeply and fiercely but I am always just that person, who just like everyone else, is flawed and weird and crazy and kind and helpful and angry and people are complex creatures and no one is the exception from that rule.

I've lost a lot of friends on the way. Some of them due to being ill (my bipolar have been insane during times when not medicating) and some because they've pulled back and some because I have no idea, perhaps distance or me getting shy all of a sudden and .. well you know, people come and go through life, and some remain and some are perhaps lost, but with good memories mostly.

I am hoping that she will just stop. If she can. But she has no one to talk to about this, so maybe she has to get to tell me, because who else? I just got a new mail now, where she says that she hates me.

Saturday afternoon she was over here, we were sat on the floor in my living room, talking, laughing, looking at our cats (she usually brings her cat along, the cat is her ALL) being cats. Before she left we spoke about going for a walk out to a lake on Sunday. When Sunday came around, I wasn't okay and I wrote a text telling her that.

And then boom - drama!

I am not sure how I feel about it all. She was never my "friend". I don't think that I will miss her at all. But then again, I am a loner too.

I am a bit scared (okay, scared is the wrong word, more like worried) that she will do something worse than just sending me hate-letters. She is so strange. For a while, when I started to first know her a little bit, I met her everywhere I went. And I was joking with my sister about how this weird woman was following me around. She used to stand in her window and saw me coming and going to my own house from the tube or the shop etc.

I am actually pondering if she did follow me around.

I am very uncertain of what sort of a person I seem to have found.

It's so odd the whole thing. If we had some violins playing Zbigniew Preisner's music, and the world around me turning black and white (and mainly gray) I'd feel like I am in a movie.

Last thing she told me, before she left on Saturday, was that she will get herself a man. I hope so much for her sake, that she will find the kindest, most sweethearted, giving, unselfish man in the world, and I want her to be happy at last.

(and stop sending me hate-mails!)