I have trouble understanding people whose life mission it is to destroy relationships. Why do they do it? What traumatic experience did they go through in the past to make them hate the thought of people having good relations with others? Are they simply craving for attention? And the most pressing question I guess is: have they nothing better to do with their lives?

When I was 12 or 13, I had a misunderstanding with one of my playmates supposedly because of something I said behind her back. For the life of me, I don't ever remember saying anything offensive or hurtful because I didn't want enemies, even for a day.

Petty fights

Taking sides among friends is normal among kids. And in our naivety at that age, we rarely confront the other to clarify things. Instead, we huddle with whoever decides to stick with us from among the group and blurt out our feelings.

Long story short, the one who stuck with me was the same one feeding me all the crap that caused the misunderstanding, and he made it all up! For what? I guess he was envious of my relationship with the other girls, and wanted to have someone to hang out with exclusively. He was gay, but hadn't come out yet, and didn't much like being with the boys then.

Very petty, I know. But if I hadn't caught on what he was up to, our misunderstanding due to nothing would have lasted for days and affected our friendship. I think after that incident, that boy rarely joined our neighborhood gang for our afternoon playtime.

And as we grew older, our relationship was confined to the brief hi-hello when we saw each other on the street. Eventually he left for the United States and I've never heard from him since.

Letters to keep in touch

I have a cousin, a girl a year younger than I. Since she lived in the province, and my visits there were few and far between (and vice versa), we decided to keep in touch by writing letters. This was when stationeries were the in thing among girls and writing by hand was the norm.

I think we wrote each other weekly or bi-weekly just to keep in touch with what was going on in our teen lives. They weren't long (how could they be when it was so frequent and the stationeries were only five inches in length). I enjoyed that exchange very much, especially because that was the period when we didn't get to fly out there for a long time.

Then the letters stopped. I think she didn't answer my last letter, and I am not sure if I wrote a final one before quitting, too. It never occurred to me to ask why we stopped communicating, even through our mothers (they are sisters). I simply took it to mean she was either busy with a lot of activities or was no longer interested to keep in touch.

Many years passed. We would sometimes see each other, but briefly and often with a whole bunch of other cousins or relatives, so there was no opportunity to sit down and talk. We'd grown up and so much had happened in our lives, which we only learned about from our moms, who both travelled often to visit each other.

Why it ended

It must've been fated to have closure about that sudden end to our communication. A whole kaboodle of cousins from the province came and stayed in our house for a few days, I think because of one family event or another. My pen-pal cousin wasn't among them.

But during one of our protracted lunches, two of my cousins brought up that subject of our letter writing, which ended abruptly. It was from them that I learned an older cousin was the culprit.

When she found out we had been writing to each other, she needled my pen-pal cousin that it was actually a competition. She insinuated I kept up with the letters to show I was better at writing! So each time she would reply, I would make it a point to tell an even better story to eclipse hers.

I was aghast! Seriously?? A competition? All I wanted was a relationship with a cousin who I liked a lot, however different we were. And since seeing each other regularly was not possible, keeping in touch via letters was the next best thing. (Long distance phone calls were expensive then.)

That knowledge crushed me. Here we were, two innocent people just building a relationship only to fall victim to one very insecure individual's malicious machinations. (We have since rekindled our ties and are now in constant communication).

And there's more...

And then it came out that culprit cousin had been putting a wedge on the relationships between other cousins and even our aunts by spreading lies, twisting stories, and feeding ugly gossip that were absolutely baseless.

It was despicable. Yet I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. She was close to my mom (or so I thought) and after that incident with the letters, what more could she do to hurt me? We didn't see each other often. When we did, I always tried to be nice to her, even with all her quirks and idiosyncrasies.

But she kept on with her destructive and busybody mode. I'd hear my two aunts were not on speaking terms, or two cousins were giving each other the cold shoulder treatment, etc. all because of her doing.

I have to hand it to her. She is very, very good at what she does. Except that she could use that skill for positive things and not to cause friction among relatives or sever ties among her people.

Now, she is also not in speaking terms with my mother. And I've nothing to say to her, too, after that stunt she pulled on my mom, my sister, and I.

Cutting ties

I just feel sad for this woman. She's brainwashed her kids against their father, and she will put anyone in a bad light as long as you're not behind her craziness. How many more relationships within the family will she harm?

Maybe if she found a job and focused her energies there, she would think less about poking into other people's lives. She studied to be a nurse, but never took the boards. She's a neat freak, an organizer, but none of those are put to good use.

I wonder if that time will come when she realizes all the misery, hurt, and anger she caused has taken away so much from her too. For what? Envy? She could have gained more if only she used her abilities to build than to destroy. Attention? It's far better to stand under the spotlight for deeds that dignify than degrade.

Her day of reckoning will come. I only hope by then she would have been enlightened.