“The Bees are Dead”

“…When the walk doesn’t support the teachings….someone who is preaching a completely different sermon than he was living.”

– Taura Stinson

By Mingjie Zhai, Told through “You”

“I went against my instincts and allowed this man to come into my home. This is what I get for going against my instincts,” your friend told you. 

“Then, I was made to feel bad for not setting my boundaries,” she said. You’ve realized she was right. This is her home, her safe haven, and the man–who carries the toxic energy–was invited to her home. He toxified her sanctuary. And the woman who abused him.

The bees are dead. You feel like you killed them. That’s how she made you feel. Now you know how you make other people feel when you blame them for things outside their control. 

“This guy is a drug addict. He’s a serial liar. I want him out of my house!” she says. But she has his money. 

“Okay, but you can’t just walk in there. You had him sign the sublet agreement, and he had paid in full.”

“I don’t care about the lease agreement. I want him out. I’ll give him back his money.”

“The White Exposed

“The cut on his wound was so deep you could see the white of his bones,” the neighbor had said when you had visited her place for the third time. You know better than to go in there and talk to him. That’s grounds for harassment; there are privacy laws in California. Her worries reminded you of your worries when you were landlord once upon a time ago.

Now you see the irony in all this. The white picket fence of your old home where you and your ex-husband used to spend long hours building…only to now have strangers make it their home.

You later told Stella, who was subletting her place and who had trusted you to show her home to potential tenants that this tenant was hospitalized.

She knew the man was hospitalized. But she was angry that the man, who was hospitalized by his girlfriend, had broken her desk, her printer, her bulletin board, they had the police come to break up what fight was happening at the time. The neighbor was worried and had even helped the man when he was bleeding out.

The strangers who went in and out of her house, effectively destroyed it. 

“He lies about everything. I mean everything. He takes no accountability. He’s shifty and if you look in the encyclopedia, his image is there, under the word ‘victim.’ He’s had cancer, had a friend shot in the head, been robbed three times all in the space of a month. And it’s all lies, lies, and lies. He’s driven by meth and is delusional,” she says. 

You were a meth addict. You have been robbed of your time, your money, and your future by two men you had trusted and loved. And yes, you are shifty as well, constantly moving from one place to another, not wanting to settle with just one person. It is the sign of a victim. Then what? There’s so much blame, labels, and anger from her that you just can’t take in all that negativity right now. Your empathy for her is tried. You know that even though you want to feel bad for her, her vitriol and inconsideration of others was so off putting all you could do is just stay away from the hurricane. That spirit is a succubus, soul-sucking your spirit. 

And you definitely can’t take the blame for everything. But then again, Stella’s reaction is something you are all too familiar with.

You were reminded of how you were when you were the landlord. You could care less if the couple was struggling with five kids to pay the rent to your town house. They were two weeks behind rent. You wanted your money. Because you choose them out of compassion when you intuitively knew that they were not qualified, their lack of integrity caused you enough strife that you had ultimately decided to sell the house rather than trusting a newly reliable couple to take care of your home. 

Redfin recently emailed you to remind you that since you’ve sold the townhouse, the house has gone up 50% in value. Sonny really did have an eye for real estate. He was taking care of you and of the future. God, you missed him.

“You are choosing things over people,” you reminded her. You wanted to help her elevate her consciousness. She had taken the same Milestone program you had taken and it was about focusing on our being rather than what we are doing. You know that being actually creates our reality, so you have her focus on her being.

She was being worried.

You were being impatient, irritated, and accusatory.

“You are being inconsiderate of his health and his mental welfare,” you say.

“Yes, but what about my mental health?” she asks you. “You’re my friend and yet you’re taking his side,” she says. “While you’re concerned with his suicidal ideations, which by the way is ungrounded, know that lately I’ve been thinking of suicide as well. I just recently gotten robbed 50k from my business; the man whom I loved no longer loves me; and now I’m about to get evicted because my landlord will soon find out that I have illegally subleased the place.”

“So what would you like me to do?”

“You said you would help me. You are responsible for this.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

She couldn’t give you a straight answer.

The truth was, she just wanted you to have more compassion for her situation. She just wanted you to feel with her. To be worried with her, to BE with her.

But you couldn’t do that for her. All you were thinking about was how she was being controlling, demanding, and

So you sent her the link: The Jezebel Spirit

Fixing

But you were too concerned about fixing her.

The same way you were being with your sister.

Which is why you’ve alienated your sister. She has blocked you from Facebook. For the longest time you couldn’t figure out why, until Stella started operating the same way of being as you were to your little sister. Then you saw exactly what Sonny, what Green Eyes, what Drum and Bass told you: “I can’t be with you. No matter what I do for you, it’s never going to be good enough.”

You tell her, “The man just got hospitalized because the woman he loves has cut him. The last thing he needs is for us to show up at his door unannounced to strong arm him to leave. The man is emotionally and physically broken.”

“What about me?” she replies.

Fuck you. You tell yourself. Don’t be so fucking nice. You’re the one people go to because people know you’re too nice. Then they take advantage of you. Fuck you.  

“Don’t ask me to be nice to a stranger and then you later shut down as a Christian to help someone else out. That is ultimate hypocrisy,” she says.

Wow, this is exactly how you were being with Reedle, a guy you briefly dated and now are too ashamed to tell anyone ever that you ever dated him. He was pathetic, a liar, and full of bullshit, so you tell yourself, but all you were being was how Stella was being–a Jezebel.

Responsibilities:

You realize that she is acting like a selfish inconsiderate you not too long ago. You are exactly like her.

So you tell her what you are now telling yourself:

Take responsibility for your words, your actions, your negative energy. I’m not responsible for being your emotional tampon. The energy you put out is toxic. I’m no longer shutting down. At this point, I’m in self-protection mode. Observing your reactions reminds me of a darkly mirror of myself. 

No matter how much I will attempt to help you, you will find fault in it no matter what. So no, it’s not shutting down at this point…it’s saying “no” to you.

“No,” I’m no longer helping you.

“No,” I’m not going to spend time to listen to you badger and label the guy.

“No,” I’m not spending anymore time, energy, or resource in dealing with something that at this point is your responsibility.

You’re the one who signed the contract. You’re the one who picked him out for me to meet him. You’re the one who told him where the keys are. You’re the one who took his deposit. You’re the one who wrote to him. You’re the one who subleased the place when it was illegal.

I’m done with this conversation. And taking responsibility is different than apologizing. I will not apologize for helping you out nor will I apologize for having compassion for him.

You can have all the superpowers you want. All the power in the world don’t mean shit if we don’t use our superpowers for love.

Peace.

 Then again, you are acting like a self-righteous Christian.

You realize that what you needed from the men who gave you no empathy was empathy. You had forgotten how to give your sister empathy.

What your sister and all your sisters needed was empathy, even at a time when they couldn’t give it to others.