[8] name the devil...

Day 8:  Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like poop.

Jane Garitowitz.

Kidding.  If you are Jane Garitowitz, sorry for using your name.  But I fully believe we make our own lives hell.  Sure there are some nasty people that say nasty things, but it’s how we chose to deal with the nasty. 

Story time.  I remember sitting in high school math class my freshman year and this girl, I’ll call her Sue Silver, started whispering my name and saying nasty things.  Up until that day I had never met Sue Silver.  I knew her name, but had never spoken to her or of her…ever.  And suddenly she’s saying nasty things.  So I speak up dumbfounded and ask who she is, trying to point out we don’t know each other. 

I couldn’t have even told you who her friends were.  (Let’s face it, my world revolved around church.  I was not allowed to go to the houses of kids parents my mother didn’t know, so that limited my friends to church.)  The nasty continues.  Again, dumfounded I tell her I think she has the wrong Heather. 

The nasty escalates, and at this point I’m at a complete loss-my patience is thin-and I’ve about had enough.  I’m ready to get up and bust some chops…in the middle of math class, so instead I start slamming my fist of my desk.  And that is when the teacher, after hearing the nasty continue for the last 30-minutes finally steps in and says enough…right as the bell rings.

We leave.  There is no rumble in the hallway.  The next day in class nothing.  Not a damn thing.  I can only assume that she figured out she had the wrong Heather, and she was just too embarrassed to admit her mistake.  A couple years later I found myself in the same class as Sue Silver once again.  About half way into the semester she asked if I was still mad at her.  And still as dumbfounded as the first day she uttered my name I shook my head no and shrugged my shoulders. 

To this day I have no clue what that was about.  But that is my memory of Sue Silver.  It was one day of hell.  One day of being treated like poop.  And I have never forgotten.  Never stopped wondering why. 

Sure, other "people" have made my life hell. That was until I realized it's my own actions and reactions that created that hell.  It's my choice to take the road that leads to that hell or about-face. Sometimes the about-face is really easy.  Sometimes I apparently need to revisit that hell to remind myself it's not a fun place. 

There is a song by Company of Thieves called "Oscar Wilde" that sums it up well...'we are all our own devil, and we make this world our hell'.