It’s HER.
Of course it is. I just about facepalmed when I read it.
Makes perfect sense. She was behind it all along. My hand trembles as I read the message and cower, wondering if she’s going to come after me, who she’s going to poison against me now. She’s been after me for years. I’d better call her, apologize, grovel, beg for forgiveness and ask what she wants me to do for penance. I’ll also need to shut down my progress and acquiesce to what she wants, appease this person who is so absolutely appalled at everything I do with my life…
Nah.
That’s absolutely not what I’m going to do this time, though that’s probably what she thinks would fix this for her.
Many chapters ago, ch. 37, I had a stalker.
Ages later, enough time has passed that I could probably carbon date the hate mail that once stuffed mailboxes all over Tiny Town. I stare at my phone in wonder that anyone could possibly obsess over someone enough to message them more than ten years after an event. Back in the day, an anonymous someone had been mailing flyers about me to God knows how many people in Tiny Town, detailing what a shitty person I was, emphasized by bright, colorful memes of Obama and Willy Wonka. I had no way to identify the mystery person who haunted me, and, absolutely terrified, I spent a year living in mortal fear of this unseen foe, an extra year in my marriage, an extra year without changing anything I wanted to change. I was held captive by my own terror of this nameless boogeyman who held the power to ruin my reputation in the church world. I was a puppet and I could only see the strings attached to my limbs, not knowing who held the wooden controls.
But now, long past my life having been blown up and well into the rebuild, living in a different city with entirely new friends, I receive another angry message, another torpedo of vitriol aimed at me, hoping for mass destruction. Only this time the author makes no attempt whatsoever to keep her identity hidden, and the name on the torpedo is printed right on it in massive block letters. I finally know who was spending copious amounts of time bent on my destruction. Back then, I thought maybe it was Joe Sham. He may have played a role, but he definitely wasn’t the mastermind. The mask finally falls to the ground, and the instigator is revealed at last. I am spectacularly and immensely… unsurprised. This is like finding out Elon Musk is behind some of the weird UFO lights in the sky, or that one of the crazy conspiracy theories surrounding Bill Gates is totally true, or discovering there is no actual chicken in McNuggets. Not surprising, right?
The one person who would send letters all around town to make sure I stayed in my place. The one sending me anonymous hate mail, letters telling me I was one pitchfork-tail short of being the literal Antichrist, and that the rest of my days would be best spent groveling in a pile of horse manure, begging for the forgiveness of the vast humanity I had damaged.
Mother fucking Superior. From Chapter 23.
I had to respect the tenacity. I mean, who even has the time? This part of it always baffled me. In order to accomplish this, she had to create memes, hunt down addresses, type and print out letters (See, if I were the mastermind, this is where I’d run out of toner and give up.), buy envelopes, BUY STAMPS, and take them to a post office that didn’t betray your location? I mean come on, when’s the last time anyone even sent out an actual letter? On PAPER??
… But this is over a decade since. I just assumed I’d never really know who led the anti-Monica mailbox campaign. I’m extremely surprised she even took the time for one last blast at me. I suppose she had so much control over me previously, she may think some of that control is still in existence. But it’s not, and this time I read her rantings more bemused than anything. This poor woman has wasted precious years of her life being obsessed with me, instead of building her own world. She had an incredible singing voice, and was ridiculously smart and skilled, with a sharp wit and contagious laugh, yet she wasted a bunch of time focusing on things she couldn’t change. There are so many lessons in this.
Allow me to back up. How do you create a stalker?
Back in my church days, when I was the main worship leader and director, I did the scheduling, public speaking and singing, sometimes even part of the sermon. I taught harmony parts. I taught Bible studies. I led the youth band, the drama team, community events, team building events… but there’s something I wish I would have been prepared for at the time. When you are making a difference, doing something cool and extraordinary, others will want to hijack it without putting in the work, without becoming the type of person who does these things.
Coattail riders.
Anyone reading this who has accomplished anything significant knows exactly what I’m talking about.
She wanted my position. She wasn’t qualified for it, but she sure as hell did want it. And she wasn’t even the only one. This happened with others, those who would sidle in, posing as friends, but through the thin veneer was an ulterior motive. Predictably, either time I was fired, the second I was evicted from my position, these “friends” slid right into my still-warm chair, gleefully taking over what I had built.
She also had a controlling streak worse than Britney Spears’ dad. I, totally compliant Monica at the time, mistakenly thought I had found a fabulous new friend and commenced spending a ton of time with her. I thought she was good for me. At least I didn’t have to figure out my own life, she would do it for me. Easy. She would tell me what I should be doing, and I would nod and smile, a little kid complying to the projected direction of her Mommy Dearest orders.
Her life was off the rails, why not control mine instead?
It’s a very common theme. It wasn’t until I was learning about boundaries that I was able to do anything about it. Then, in one particularly nasty car ride, it was over. I was riding along, listening to her wax lengthy and eloquent about the things I should be doing on the worship team as I stared out her passenger window with tears rolling down my cheeks. I was hopelessly receiving the latest tug of marionette strings at my wrists and ankles, when I decided I was done. I abruptly stopped spending time with her, effectively shredding those hateful strings and placing me back in control.
She wasn’t a fan of my new border installation. She liked running free, tearing apart my flower beds because they weren’t to her liking. Problem is, if your neighbor is accustomed to coming over and drinking all your lemonade while they sit in your hammock, they aren’t going to be very happy when you put up a fence and shut off their supply. The seeds of disgruntlement were sown, and she began resenting me.
I was still somehow the one three years later who received the afternoon phone call from the police department (Do you really just get one phone call? I hope I never find out.) telling me there was someone who wanted to speak with me. At the moment I was baffled, until I heard her brassy, sharp voice; a drunken lunatic on the other end of the line.
“You arreeen’t lissening to me. Wassa maddr with you? YOU’RE. NOT. LISSNING!!!”
She yelled at me for a solid twenty minutes, a vodka-driven diatribe about how I wasn’t doing this right. I was eventually able to interpret the slurred insults, which turned out to be a request to please retrieve her children from school, as she is unavoidably detained, having flipped her car on her way to pick them up. I took her verbal punishment, and went and got her kids, and farmed them off to their friend’s houses without a word, a question, a hint of calling this a problem. The church had trained me well.
After this debacle, she became more and more of a problem, until there was a point at which she was pulled from leadership, which apparently made her hate me enough to start looking for any way possible to get rid of me. I mean, I guess she kind of succeeded.
Yet, here I am, ten years later, and it must not have been enough for her that my church career was forfeit, that I lost everything, that I left town, reputation ruined and judgment executed. She had to hunt me down for a last laugh, ages after I lost everything and left Tiny Town.
I’m kinda surprised she even remembers who I am. But remember she does, and here I am looking at this dumb message. I had her blocked for years, but she found a loophole and messaged my business page. Brilliant. Well, she never was stupid. She had many meetings with the powers that be leading up to Pastor Jock firing us, and now that I know she was likely the main person who was behind the smear campaign, I realize she was also the driving force behind the first time we were fired.
But why bother thinking about it now? It would accomplish exactly nothing.
I do feel a bit sorry for her not finding something better to do with her time for the last ten years.
I see the damage it does. Either time we were fired, I, too, had the extremely tempting possibility of taking up a similar mantle, one meant to hurt, one that lives for vengeance, that lies in wait to see the person who did me wrong fall, who can jump on their ashes SEE I TOLD YOU SO!!!
… but I know that in every case of vengeance, it destroys the person seeking the vengeance far more than the recipient of their justified anger. If I had pursued the path of vengeance, I would have been far too obsessed with everyone who had done me wrong to have any time at all to build a future.
Many a man is destroyed by their obsession with those who did him wrong.
NOPE. Not gonna do it.
But there is another, less obvious lesson here, as I set down my phone with its bombastic message.
It was a very, VERY good thing that I cut her from my life. Could you imagine the difference if I hadn’t? If I had stayed in relationship with this incredibly controlling person who wanted to tell me who to be?
I have read repeatedly that you are the product of the five people you spend the most time with, and in my consideration of this rather extreme example of how just letting anyone in the door of your life can damage you, your life and your direction, I resolve another thing for Monica 2.0.
I’m done spending time with people out of obligation. The problem with this in the church was the expectation that you be everyone’s friend, like them or not. NO fucking thank you! I’ve spent time with people who made me want to fake my death so they would leave me alone. I could be actually dead and buried and they would still attempt to dig up the corpse so they could tell just one more story. I’m through with endless listens to every crazy who wants to enter my world.
My resolve strengthens.
I am only allowing people into my life whom I enjoy, who support my big dreams, who encourage and lift up, value-added people who bring something to the table.
Because I will no longer be the only one bringing all of the everything to life’s buffet.
I’m fairly sure it’s here that Monica’s Cardboard Box Theory is born.
“And, what is Cardboard Box Theory, fine lady?” you ask with a horrible Cockney accent.
Here it is.
MONICA’S CARDBOARD BOX THEORY:
You can be in a seven-star hotel (yes, this exists, though I marvel at what makes a hotel seven stars. Do they wipe your butt for you with only the finest cashmere?). You can be on a thirty-seven foot yacht, or in the back of a limousine headed to a thousand dollar a plate event. Doesn’t matter how spectacular, how expensive, how over-the-top luxurious.
If you are with shit people, it will suck and you are going to be miserable. You can’t cool-stuff your way out of awful relationships, but I see people attempt it all the time. From friends you’d rather avoid, who should be relegated to acquaintance status, to a significant other who chronically annoys you, to the very worst…a spouse who causes you to constantly walk on eggshells, the wrong people in your life will make you more miserable than damn near anything. I lived this in the church, and saw it all the time dating, the person with a ton of possessions and no personality.
But let’s flip this.
You can have a simple cardboard box, and have the right people with you, and you will make the box into a Cantina, make margaritas and have a fantastic time building windows, and stairs, and anything else you can figure out to create together. Bottom line being, you can be in almost any situation with the right person, or people, and find enjoyment in it. Life revolves around who you’re with.
Good relationships are paramount, and with this latest message, I decide another upgrade is in order, beyond just getting rid of wheelbarrows.
I am going to find the best people to hang around with.
Because I am determined to become the best sort of person with whom you would want to hang around.
And, in spite of my propensity to end sentences with a preposition, I totally believe I can do this.
I’m going to start by walking on fire.
Worship Leader Gone Wild 