Looking Back

I ended up with some kind of flu after the race this weekend. Actually, that timeline isn't accurate. I see now that something was probably festering for a while, and the race taxed my system enough to allow whatever I was fighting leading up to Saturday to manifest days after the 5K. In other words, I was not 100 percent going into the race. It's easy and I'm quick to think a lack of motivation is a mental issue, but it's often some combination of physical, emotional, and mental. In this case, I think quite a lot of it was physical. That doesn't change what I need to work on in races and in training, but testing myself will have to wait until I can first jog again and then pick up the pace a little. Right now, my lesson is rest.

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In an unrelated event, someone sent me an email with a screenshot containing dialogue from a forum I stopped frequenting long ago. Actually, I was banned when the moderator lied about me, taking some of my personal information and twisting it all over the place, and didn't want me there to defend myself. Seems like a strange move to ban someone who hasn't violated any terms of service, but cowards will hide in whatever hole or hovel they can find.

What's funny is that I'm still occupying space in her messed up head even after all these years have passed. I need to give myself the same advice I just gave someone else. When people lie about you, trust that everyone else knows who's fibbing. This I believe 100 percent. It's an uncomfortable position to be in, but I am convinced that anyone who knows me knows who I am, and chances are, especially in this case, those who know her also know her true colors.

I'm not concerned. I bring it up because it's a good reminder that liars typically are haunted and have to constantly try to push their narrative even many, many years later. And their story usually changes. First I was the poor victim of continual abuse by someone, then I was the great big manipulator who orchestrated everything (for what reason??), now it's something vague, no real details, of course. My story has always remained the same, and I'm not afraid of stating it publicly, again. I don't need to hide it in some random forum.

I had a personal issue that included a few chaotic incidents. I shared this confidentially with someone in the forum who shared it with others without my consent. God knows what she said, but I honestly think she meant well. At one point, I left the forum. The moderator then, behind my back, exaggerated and misrepresented what I had said to the one person in whom I confided and plastered her version of the information in the forum for all to see. Friends let me know. I came back to the forum but was almost immediately banned. There was some pushback, so she changed her story, implying I made the whole thing up and suggested I falsified police reports. Then she suggested I deserved it or started it. And she's still trying to claim I did this for attention or something ridiculous. Anyone who knows me knows I'm pretty much the opposite of an attention seeker. So in her own words, fuck 'em. Oh, and welcome to 2019.

ETA: Dec 2019

My how things seem to repeat themselves.

I'm disappointed to know that someone on my Facebook friend's list decided to take some information I shared and post it on the running forum I mentioned above. Needless to say, she is no longer a friend. As anyone who has read the above can imagine, I'm not happy about this. I've had nothing to do with that place for years for a reason. I don't appreciate people calling me a groupie and implying anything worse. My thoughts about the moderator there haven't changed. What she did to me in the past is unforgivable, and she's not willing to come forward and tell the truth about what she did.

When I say she exaggerated things, I didn't mean to imply nothing happened, that I made things up. That's just not the case, however, this was not a constant or daily issue, as she implied, and the way she worded things made it seem like something else entirely. For the record, I did not lie about anything and haven't. I think what happened is that she told this exaggeration when she wanted to show everyone she had the scoop, and then people got on her case about it. Then, she felt the need to shift the blame and did one hell of a backpedal job, suggesting I had lied. Nope. I did not do that. Over time, I honestly think she started to believe her own lies, and I also believe other people started to believe her as well, even a few people who called me a friend. And who knows what other people were telling her about the whole mess. It's quite possible she didn't pull the story about me making this up out of her ass, but I had already told her the truth about what happened. She knew, so no matter what, she was absolutely rotten to me and has to live knowing that. Some people don't really give a shit, though, and can live just fine with that kind of behavior.

I do appreciate the few people who were kind enough to try to set things straight. In general, the less I hear about that place, the better. Every time I think of what went down previously, I get a sick feeling. It was especially upsetting that this happened at a time when I'm dealing with a lot of extra stress in my life.