Karma With Interest

Over twenty years ago my world was burned to the ground by a woman I had given everything to be with. The drama that saturated her life also consumed mine -and I allowed it willingly… The love I believed I had for her was beyond my own comprehension.

What I received for my troubles was long term psychological damage that I struggled with for over a decade -Attempted murder by police. Loss of residence, the business I was a part of… my future… A temporary, extreme change in my behavior. She even threw our two cats out onto the street.

Deep within the recesses of my mind, I hoped to eventually see karma make its appearance. Every 5-10 years since the divorce, I’ve dropped in on a select few of the bunch just to see… I consider the rabbit hole to be something between self-harm and therapy – the quest to see the universe balance the equation for what she, as well as a few others, have done to everyone else, not just me.

Due to the bridges they routinely burn, their online social profiles are kept locked down. They hide… and rightly so.

It’s not worth purchasing their data so what I can find through traditional online searches satisfies my curiosity. Most of the time, I discover nothing -which tells me everything is as it’s always been.

From time to time, a nugget appears.

A few days ago I believed I struck gold. Maybe too much gold?

Almost a decade ago, she lost her oldest son to suicide.
The guy she lied to me to be with, divorced her 5 years ago.
This past year, arrested for 2 DUIs and once for domestic abuse.
Her weight has doubled since I divorced her.
She appears to be estranged from her family and remaining child.

Seeing her multiple mugshots online revealed the face of a woman unfamiliar to me. She was broken. Anger and pain behind her eyes. She looked even more lost than when I knew her 20 years ago.

It broke my heart a little. I wanted her to suffer as much as she has made others throughout her life… but not to the degree in which she has.

As a child, her daddy created a narcissist through his reprehensible actions. Since that time, it’s been her against the world. Rather than choose to seek help, she found distraction through alcohol and sex. The bottles and bodies have continued to stack.

We are responsible for the choices we make, however often times the trees of anger, denial, and confusion, hide the answers that wait for us deeper within the forest.

We mask survival by calling it love and fail to understand that real love carries no caveats. Survival depends on them.

Sometimes it takes absolute bottom before behaviors can be broken. Nothing to hide behind. Nothing standing between us and our reflection in the mirror.

It’s hard to hold resentment and hatred towards someone who was f*cked from birth. I sincerely pray she has the ability to understand she must change before it’s too late. There’s still time.