Now What?

It's been a week since the latest round of drama has unfolded.  My fb message box has many messages, texts come in at all hours of the day and my phone rings often from people wanting the newest and most up to date info on this awful situation.   I wish I knew what to say.

My heart aches, not only because I've lost people I valued as friends, but because so many have been wounded through calculated acts of another.  I've been told by the one who received the release it was told to him that the document came from someone other than me.  All I can do is shake my head in disbelief! I know with whom I shared that draft,  and each knew beyond doubt it was from me.  The fact that this piece of paper has been used to slander someone I care about wounds me more than the accusations the slandered person is making.

How can people be so willfully cruel?  Why would someone knowingly pervert a document when it's true purpose would eventually be found out?  I can't wrap my brain around it; I just can't.  And still, it's being told to me 'I knew the source of the slander and did nothing'.  This is surreal.

I've been called a fraud by one I loved as a friend, a backstabber by those who protect her as I once did and a patsy by those who "knew" I would eventually be betrayed.  I feel a bit like Jake Sully...  but I have no fierce winged creature to tame,  fly in on, regain my respect and save the day by exposing the true enemy.  So, now what? 

I have cried so many tears my eyes are dry and burning.  I have tried to share the truth to no avail.  I am left to follow a course of action that cannot provide a winning outcome, even if, in the end my name is vindicated.  I simply can not see past the damage this is going to do to a cause I so vehemently believe in.  What happened to the "I will come to you if there should be a problem between us"?  Though you can take a leader out of a cult, maybe you really can't get the cult out of the leader. 

I shut out several of my friends these past few days out of fear of losing more, being rewounded each time I was told I'm no longer trustworthy, isolating myself in the deep places of my mind.  I must begin to make my way out of safety of my hiding place.  I must again find the courage to speak out for those who are not yet able. Though I am now seen as an enemy, I must find away to come along side my former friend and fight for the freedom so many deserve; even if that means standing behind the gate, arrows at the ready.

Take them down my friend, I still have your back...  but this time I know you don't have mine.