5 July 2000

Reading:  The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav.

Some time ago -- I guess it would be about two and a half years ago -- I wound up "purging" someone who had once been dear to me, but whose moral choices I could not sanction (for background on purges, see my 26 March journal entry -- the subject of tonight's entry is AP from that entry).  I have thought of AP a number of times since, and had a number of discussions with my friend Camille about it.   Neither one of us could ever figure out just what it was that could make this person leave our spiritual world for the world she chose.  But as months stretched into years, I think we both stopped thinking about it.  As time goes by, a death fades from memory.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I get a terribly gutsy email today, completely out of the blue, from AP, basically admitting that she had made some bad choices over time, that recently she had come to realize this, and that she was in the process of remedying them.   The email went into some detail, and was about as harsh a self-critique as I've seen in a while (and I've been known to throw some pretty harsh things at myself on occasion).  The email concluded with a request to me to consider if there was a basis for resurrecting some sort of friendship -- along with a frank admission that I might not find such a thing possible, and that AP knew I would at least be honest whatever my decision.

Callie and I were just having a discussion tonight about a group of women she knows who basically get together, bitch about everything that's wrong in their lives, and never do anything about it.  Doing something about it is the hard part -- and an admirable, heroic thing.  The sorts of people who do something about it -- whatever "it" may be -- are my sorts of people.  AP seems to forget that once upon a time, though for somewhat different reasons, I found myself in her own predicament:   a marriage to someone I couldn't respect and who tore me down for my virtues, and a desperate need to escape or to die spiritually.

My friend Samantha once asked me about "purges" and if they were permanent.   It was a good question.  I didn't have a good answer at the time, probably for lack of experience in that area.  How do people get to be a part of my world?  Generally, by being rational, spiritual, moral, heroic, happy beings.   AP was once a part of that world because she had those qualities; in my judgment, she betrayed them at some point.  So is recognition of a betrayal the key?  I don't think so; indeed, that almost sounds like a Catholic confessional.  I think recognition is the start -- and one's subsequent actions are the key.  I want to see AP return to being that rational, moral, heroic, happy, spirtual being I once knew.   I think it's possible.  Hell, I know it's possible.  I want to see it happen -- and I'll just keep populating my world, slowly but surely.