Ice, Ice Baby

"Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.

They don't mean to do harm, but the harm does not interest them."

T.S. Eliot

Do you know how to ice someone out of your life?  I don't mean literally removing someone from this planet and placing them on a slab of ice in the morgue.   I mean neutralizing someone who has taken a toxic role in your everyday life.  Or more realistically how to neutralize their effect on your well being.  

I didn't know how to do this.  It was my BFF Fanette who taught me.  Fanette is a believer.  A true optimist.  She doesn't just put her faith in a religious basket of beliefs (like the good catholic girl she was raised to be) but reaches outside what is considered the norm as well.  A mere 300 years ago, she'd have been burned at the stake for such thoughts.  Come to think of it, I'd have been burned too just for the birds of a feather thing.  I'm glad I have such a friend who challenges me to think differently when trying to find solutions to problems.

It was Fanette I went to when this person began to trouble me.  To speak bluntly, this person just burns my arse.  This is someone who has an answer for everything.  Right or wrong, it's this person's way or the highway.  No meeting in the middle.  No respect for other's feelings and beliefs.  The sun rises and sets on this person.  Over time, I have tried quite amicably to mend the rift I have with this person who I must share some aspects of my life.  It's been to no avail. It truly isn't for lack of trying.  There is just no living with a narcissist.  Be sure to read up on the typical traits of a narcissist.  I'm certain you know one.  If not, consider yourself blessed.

Some time ago, at my BFFs urging, I froze this person out of my life.  The procedure is quite simple.  You take a waterproof marker and a scrap of a brown paper bag.  Write the person's name you'd like to freeze out on the paper and submerge it in water in a container with a lid.  Stick it in the freezer and pray for no power failures.  Simple right?  Too simple to work?  On the contrary, it works quite well.  Perhaps it's the little ritual that goes along with the whole icing procedure; it's letting the problem go.  Perhaps it's the chill in the air.  Perhaps, it works.  I like to think it does.

Fanette has done this procedure in the past and swears by it.  She also speaks of the time someone let the person she had frozen out of the freezer.  Seems he had mistaken it for a tub of margarine and wanted some on his toast.  In a panic, Fanette screamed at him to hurry up and stick it back in the freezer.  She had worked so hard to freeze this unpleasant person out of her life.  She didn't want an innocent mistake to ruin it for her.

Time has passed since my freezer experiment and I have let my unpleasant person back into my life.  Little by little.  The toxicity levels have not changed one iota.  I'm just happy I recognized it early on.  So now, I'm off to find my waterproof marker and a little tub to submerge this person once and for all.  I think I may need a subzero freezer.