I've Been Trying to Get Down To the Heart of the Matter

Heather Graham played a psychiatrist named Dr. Molly Klock on Scrubs who chose her profession because of her ability to zero in on people's insecurities. A college roommate of mine was her evil counterpart.

Kolly Mock and I were best friends for probably two or three years in college, and we lived together for a lot of that time. I'm not totally sure why I was friends with her because she enjoyed making me feel bad about myself way too much. I'm sure she only did that because either she was jealous of me for something or because she was covering up her own insecurities, but it was still hurtful. By senior year, I had started to throw myself into therapy pretty intensively, and as I started to gain more respect for myself, I stopped wanting to associate with her as much. Almost simultaneously, she started dating the man she ultimately married a few years ago and I left for my study abroad program. Strangely, even though we were inseparable for years, I haven't laid eyes on her since I left for my study abroad. We didn't even talk all that much after I left. We had been growing apart for awhile, and I decided I had lost patience with her superior attitude toward everything I did when she was considering going to graduate school for the same thing I went for and I emailed her to share some of my thoughts with her about it, and she was incredibly snotty to me. Right. Like, why would I know anything about that type of grad school program considering I fucking got into one of the five best programs for it in the country? Anyway, she didn't end up going to grad school for anything. Then, she got into a huge fight with a few mutual friends of ours, and that pretty much cemented the severance of ties between us.

Today, I got a wild impulse to Google her, and even though I am certain that I would rather be leading my life than hers, she managed to make me feel bad about myself. That's right. The bitch managed to make me feel bad about myself from another state, using only the internet, without even needing to talk to me. I have a good job, I am a home owner, I have a cute dog, I make sweet moolah (without even needing Uncle Rico), and I basically do whatever I want. But she has two things that just stick in my craw: she's married and she's thin. Mind you, she is married to someone I would not look at twice (and I'm not saying he is or is not a good guy or right for her, but I met him once, and he was just not doing anything for me personally, and the mutual friend Kolly Mock had a fight with said Mr. Mock was a fucking asshole), and I am now doing Weight Watchers, but of course that bitch would have lost weight since college and would be married. Fuck her. I can't even believe I'm so annoyed about this.

It probably wouldn't even annoy me as much (yes it would) except that even earlier today, I had another wild impulse to Google my very first boyfriend. I sort of expected I wouldn't find much about him because I didn't think that whatever gas station employed him probably posted personal information about its employees online, but to my chagrin, the motherfucker is in a sketch comedy troupe. It's not a sketch comedy troupe of which I have heard (meaning, it is not The Kids In the Hall or Upright Citizens Brigade), but they have DVDs of their work for sale on Amazon, and they had a film accepted to a film festival in New York. The last time I talked to this guy, he was a jerk and he smelled like Pert Plus. Now, I'll grant you that that was when he was 15, and he may have changed some in the ensuing years, but still.

I don't know why I'm so annoyed by the successes of people who I once cared about. I'll admit I'm not so fond of either of the above-mentioned people anymore, but I once felt close to both of them. And yet, I begrudge them their successes when I should be wishing them well. After all, it's not as if I'm doing poorly and it's not as if I want to trade lives with them.

In the case of Kolly Mock, I think part of it is being angry with myself for having such a long-standing (i.e., longer than five minutes) friendship with someone who treated me so shabbily. This is not to say that Kolly Mock spent all of her time punching me in the emotional gut; there were times when she was really there for me, and she could be a lot of fun. But overall, she just was not that nice to me, and I probably should have found a way to bow out of the friendship long before I did. By the same token, I should not now hold an image of her in my mind as this relentless bitch when there were lots of times when we had fun together. Being friends with Kolly Mock was a lot like being in a shitty romantic relationship, and even though I've had more than my fair share of those, I have not found a way to accomplish the goals of letting myself off the hook for participating in the dynamic and to accept the other person as a complex individual possessed of good and bad qualities who just was ultimately not a health association for me. If I could say anything I wanted to Kolly Mock now, I would probably tell her that I didn't like the way she talked to me a lot of the time, that she should have treated me more respectfully, and that I think she beat up on me to feel better about herself and that that was a crappy thing to do, but I would also thank her for the fun times and the laughter and the listening to me complain about the loser guys I dated.

I'm not very good at processing the end of a relationship or dealing with the idea that not every relationship, of whatever type, is meant to last forever. I remember that when Doug Funny and I broke up, I told a friend of mine that he must never have cared about me at all. She said that if I needed to believe that to get past it, then I should but that she doubted it was true. She was probably right. Doug Funny broke my heart and he treated me poorly, but, looking back, I believe that he and I were in love and that he cared about me very much and probably still cares about me at some level. Doug Funny and I had a relationship with more than its fair share of tears and whisper-fighting, but we had some good times too, and he made me laugh. But the relationship went as far as it could go, and that's likely the end of it. For some reason, I find it hard to hold in my mind the image of someone who had so many positive and alluring qualities and the image of someone I no longer want in my life and who no longer wants me in his. The same kind of goes for Kolly Mock. It's hard for me to remember that she could be fun and charismatic and yet also prey unfairly on my insecurities in a way that ultimately makes her someone that I don't choose to continue to have as a friend.

I think it all comes down to the issue of forgiveness, which is something I have always struggled with. I think part of accepting someone who has hurt me as a complex individual who had good qualities as well and not just thinking of him or her as a "bad guy" involves forgiving that person. It requires accepting that that person is human, is going through his or her own journey and probably grappling with lots of things, and probably either did not intend to hurt me or did so more because of something going on internally than because of something that I did. And of course, the person I find it hardest to forgive is myself (an issue I want to explore as part of my desire to deal with some psychological things that have gotten me to the Weight Watchers point in my life). It's hard for me to look back at, say, the friendship with Kolly Mock and not think that I was an idiot for letting her mistreat me instead of thinking that it was part of growing up and learning how I would and would not tolerate being treated and that we obviously shared a lot of fun times or I wouldn't have stuck around as long as I did. It's also hard for me to look at the relationship with Doug Funny and not think I was an idiot to get involved with him at all instead of remembering that I fell in love with him at first sight, that I still believe he is my soul mate (bearing in mind that I believe people have many soul mates and that the fact that Doug Funny and I are not going to be together does not dash my hopes for future romantic happiness), and that I would have regretted it if I hadn't made an attempt to see where the relationship could go. Forgiveness has gotten fractionally easier as I've gotten older, but it's still a struggle.