There is a particular feeling to being sold out that, like most traumas, is a terrible sum of its painful parts. In some ways it's like death. You find out about it, don't believe it, rage against it, go numb, and so on in whatever order that's supposed to happen. None of that really helps or addresses the stone cold fact of it though. Those stages are more aftershocks of the inital rocking of your world.
Naturally, being sold out requires trust. Unless you are a fool, which of course won't save or excuse you, trust requires intimacy. Typically intimacy involves a great deal of time and communication. So the basic tally includes (but is not limited to) trust, intimacy, time, and communication.
When that magic moment of realization occurs and you realize that you have just been spent, the first thing to go is intimacy, and it is torn from you by the mere fact of becoming aware it no longer exists. It's like that dream where you go to work naked but don't realize it until you're there and someone points it out. Only it's not a dream, and it's a kind, soft, safe spot in your heart that's missing.
Trust dies a lot harder. It lives in your head and only visits its wilder cousin, instinct, on holiday. Like most things that live and breathe thought, trust is much slower and more inflexible about embracing reality. Trust is what makes you think of innumerable reasons that what just happened didn't actually happen. Only it did, and the contortions you go through avoiding that fact merely schedule the agonizing into a long and brutal payment plan.
Eventually, when you're back in the saddle again and you've come to grips with your situation, you run an audit. That's where you get to edit a movie called, "Me and That Cold Bitch Who Sold Me Out" which is composed of all the time and communication you've got in your memories. This takes a while but when it's done, you'll find out whether or not it's a film with a sequel, or if everything but the credits is on the cutting-room floor. Either way, you're going to be spending a nice chunk of time exploring yourself and how you live, proctology style.
When the storm passes and you've done your time and gotten your distance, an idle sort of question will come up. It's an unintentional afterthought, like the taste of a belch.
What was I worth?
Posted by Matt at January 28, 2005 12:38 PMfucking a right man. "What was I worth?" That thought has been going though my head for the last few weeks.
Posted by: d0g_p00p at February 4, 2005 08:21 AMOh yeah, How did I find out about the site and her post? Do a google search for "kathy gelpi"!
Posted by: Lou Again at January 29, 2005 07:30 AMum, your post was a very long essay and I have no idea who you are or if you're even a person or just another bot spamming. I suspect this is a bot, but in case it's not - what on earth do you want me to say about your lengthy non sequiter?
Posted by: Matt at January 28, 2005 07:57 PMHi matt,
It's mr x again. My post was deleted so fast that I'm not sure if you've read it. So if you could just drop me an email saying yes I read your stinking post then I promise never to visit your site again..
Thanks
Posted by: Luis at January 28, 2005 03:04 PM