MY WORDS -- Politics: Friends and Strange Bedfellows Part 3

I never did receive any kind of reply from my friend "J", other than a few thousand pass-it-ons, all of which I marked as "read" and moved to the "J" file in my email box without opening them or even noting their subject matter. Today, some two months out from the original exchange, I let my curiosity get the better of me and opened one. I didn't grace it with any more than a cursory glance before realizing that it was an anti-Sarah Palin e-bomb, and I went back into the "J" file and noted that numerous emails from "J" since Palin was launched as the GOP VP nominee had anti-Palin subject lines, and I was utterly furious. After the hostile message she sent me, I couldn't believe she had the unmitigated gall to send me anything political. I emailed her the following:

I need a friend, not a political advisor, and I would appreciate if you would extend me the same courtesy and respect as you requested of me – refraining from e-bombing me with any more mindless leftist bullshit (to paraphrase your own less-than-eloquent request). Our friendship has never been about politics, and if it can go on from here without politics, deal me in. If not, I will miss you – a lot – and I love you anyway.

Love,

"Anne"

Her reply a few minutes later was, "Okay." So is that "Okay, we can go on from here without politics" or "Okay, miss me a lot and love me anyway"? Who knows?

I am supposed to go to my nephew's wedding next month, going through my old home stomping grounds, and there are two people I don't EVER miss seeing when I'm there, even if I don't see anyone else; one of them I will be staying with, going and coming back; the other is "J". I had already been grappling with the idea of, for the first time ever, going through without contacting her, but this decided it for me.

I have been very hurt by this entire episode, because "J" has been one of my best friends since high school, and for her to have called me a racist just blew me away. A management asshole from MCI did the same thing a few years ago, and he, too, was treated to a 5-page litany about just how very wrong he was, although I also imparted a few pieces of information about his ancestry along the way, as well. My brother, who cannot disagree with someone about what day it is without insulting them on very basic levels, disagreed with my assessment in my letter to "J", but replied,
If, after reading your e-mail, your friend still thinks of you as anything apporoaching a racist, then you need to drop that ignorant ass like a hot watermelon. I know that friends are few and far between and not to be let go easily but I have learned that sometimes one goes it better alone rather than to lower ones convictions to appease others just to have company.

For him to have been able to disagree with me on anything at all, let alone something as rabid-inspiring as politics, with so much more eloquence with "J" (who, by the way, became my friend when she was my 9th grade English teacher), also blew my mind, but proved that it can be done.