Can We Move On Now ?

Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Burn.

Okay! Enough! I give up! I’ve had enough! Stop, just stop! Puh-leeze, Gods! Just stop it now! Oh, Gods, please!

If there were a “safe word,” I’d be screaming it by now, after only four full days of this pain. Actually, I would have been screaming it four days ago when this mess started. Instead, the best I can do is to swear to the Gods that I will never ignore my intuition again. But no, I’ve got another week and a half of this hell to endure.

I’ve known all year that the last two weeks of July would be utter  torture for me. For two whole long agonizing weeks, transiting Saturn opposes my natal Moon. Astrologically speaking, I’m screwed. The influences around me involve restrictions and emotions, meaning emotional trials, lots of sacrifice, lots of having to take care of responsibilities instead of doing the things I so enjoy or want to do, lots of pressure on work and home, not   enough   time   to   get   it   all   done,   and—of   course— disconnections and separations in love relationships…and just generally feeling under the thumb of the Universe. Yeah, it’s all true. So far, anyway.

But Saturn does tend to teach lessons we won’t soon forget, supposedly to make life easier for us later, provided we listen to our  teacher  and learn from these hard knocks. Okay, I’ve got it now! Really. Let’s move on, shall we? Do we have to keep this up for another week and a half?

One of the lessons that the Universe wants to make sure I’ve gotten is to listen to my intuition, my gut instinct. Not to let myself get  talked  into something just because it would help someone else, all  against  my better judgment and all out of wanting to please or to help  when I wouldn’t be pleasing or helping myself. If I don’t trust it, I get  kicked in the teeth. I know that now. I know!

With some people, no good deed goes unpunished, and I’m really sick of this punishment. I don’t understand how you can help someone when no one else will touch them, then have them abuse you for helping them—and then they expect you to continue to do them favors while they’re insulting your integrity. What’s with these people?

A woman I did a favor for years ago, a woman I cut ties with quite some time ago because of her consistently mean behavior toward me—even at a financial loss for me—spun back into my life a few days ago with a hysterical phone call accusing me of theft and threatening lawsuits and how could I do this to her and my supposed illegal activity and it was  theft and how could I do this to her. And I did my best to calm her down to figure out what the hell she was talking about. She was irate and irrational. Me?  Clueless.

Bottom line is this: a major corporation is claiming to sell something she owns. Not anything I own, but what she owns. They’ve listed it in their catalog—likely a beta marketing scheme gone askew—and  with me erroneously listed in connection to the product because of my prior association with her on another project. Only, this product doesn’t exist and I’m no longer associated with the other project. I have never had anything to do with the particular item that’s being sold…or not sold, actually, but still listed as being for sale. The company told me over the weekend that they don’t have this product in stock and will forward my concerns to the appropriate department to resolve the issue.

The woman seemed okay with this at first and was satisfied that  maybe I hadn’t stolen something from her after all. Yeah, guilty until  proven innocent. Meanwhile she published some comments online implying that I was involved in the illegal activity. Let’s just say that that’s a major hot button when it comes my integrity. She expected me to take care of this for her since my name had been mentioned in connection  with the imaginary item, even though I have nothing to do with it and don’t own it and can’t sue the conglomerate for stealing something I  don’t own. I simply wanted them to disassociate my name with a product I have no legal association with, and meanwhile recommended they  remove  the item from their catalog and why.

But when the major corporation hadn’t complied by the end of  the next business day, she became abusive to me, not them, with three threatening phone calls within 20 minutes’ time and a highly-agitated email questioning my integrity as well as my legal activities. Incredible. I couldn’t force an internationally known corporation  to change their online catalog overnight. They were faceless to her and unwilling to be of much help—to me, either—so I was the face she put with the problem and the one that saw the brunt of her abuse.

What I can’t stop shaking my head at is her expectation that I, whom she has maligned in a public forum online, could force a major company like that to change their listing immediately. As if I had that kind of power over them. As if I had any legal recourse of my own with them  for something that isn’t mine to claim. Short of holding a gun to the CEO’s head, I can’t figure  out  how  she  expected  me  to  do  this,  even  when  I’d dropped all my other major projects to work this issue.

The last I heard, amid her most recent spewage of allegations that I’m a thief, was that she still expected me to fix the problem for her  with this corporation even though she is the sole owner of this item and I’ve never touched it.

How does she cajole me into dropping all my other responsibilities to take on a major corporation so that she won’t have to incur legal costs?

Funny, you should ask. She tells me she now has a detective on the case and an investigation into the corporation will turn up the computer that submitted her property for sale online and she’s going to pursue this to the bitter end.

If I were guilty of theft, her threats might scare me. But I’m not and they don’t. She can spend every dime on investigators and they won’t find that I’ve submitted her property or stolen it.

The shame for her is that I would have done so much to help her out and probably have taken on the burden of fixing the problem myself. Until she turned abusive. But this is a reminder, another lesson from Saturn. It’s not my responsibility. It’s her problem. And I don’t have to take on her problem.

All I can do is shake my head. Well, that and cut her off. No more of this. No more being sniped at. I don’t take that anymore.

What does listening to my intuition have to do with a former associate gone bat-shit? Well, the first time she contacted me, I thought her ideas were really cool but completely unpresentable. I thought I could fix it for her. I thought I could make it work if I just tried  hard enough. I thought if I didn’t work with her on her project, it would never see the light of day. And all the while, my intuition told me to stay far away from her, her work, and her problems. I didn’t listen, and for that, I am truly sorry. Not listening cost me years of grief—not to mention a substantial financial loss—and pain of that decision to work with her is continuing even now.

Yes, Gods. I’ll remember not to ignore my intuition. Thanks for the reminder. Can we move on now?