Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter

There comes a time in everyone’s life when he or she is stabbed in the back very hard.

 Whether it is from a family member, a close friend or a romantic partner, that wound is insurmountably deep. Most of the time, it heals. Sometimes, it just leaves a scar.

 

 

 

And in rare cases, it never heals properly.

 

 

Back when I was a freshman in high school, I was asked to read several excerpts from Dante’s Inferno. For those of you who don’t know what that is, Dante’s Inferno was the first part of a 14th century epic poem called The Divine Comedy. It gave vivid details of what hell is like in all of its nine circles. Before reading the poem, I was asked to describe my ninth level of hell. Not knowing that Dante agreed with me, I wrote about betrayal. Everyone that has sacrificed someone’s trust. Everyone that has given up their loyalty. Everyone that has taken a sharp knife and plunged it into a dear one’s back. They are the ones who would be there. They are the ones would be suffering and writhing in pain and anguish in hell. They are the ones who would have an actual knife stabbed in their backs for eternity. That was my perception of hell back then.

Now, it’s slightly changed.

As I grow and mature into my 20s, I have realized that  people have their reasons for doing what they do and acting the way they do. Sometimes, those reasons seem justified; other times, absurd. Sometimes, spiteful. Everyone thinks differently and at the end of the day, it is those differences that cause conflict for us. It is those differences in their perception of the world, their differences in their ideas that collide with ours; and most of all, it is the the difference in  their perception of us. The individual. The question we ask ourselves – Is what I am getting worth more than my relationship with this person?

And unfortunately, sometimes the answer is yes.

We’d like to think that we wouldn’t betray anyone’s trust. Or at least anyone we care about’s trust. And believe me, there are a rare few, like my father, who would never do that. But, when it all comes down to it, as humans, we are wired to betray. We are wired to be selfish and we are wired to do what is best for us.

My reason for writing this article is not because I was recently stabbed in the back by anyone nor is it because I did that to anyone.  There have been times in my life that has happened to me. But, fortunately for me, those wounds were the healing kind. I have always told my friends that I would be rather be the one that gets hurt rather than the one who does the hurting. But, now I am starting to realize that maybe that should not always be the case. Sometimes, enough is enough and you have to hurt people in order to move on.

 I have two reasons for writing this piece. One – because this past week, I saw a dance on television that was centered around betrayal. The dance told a story of a friendship whose trust was betrayed in order for one to move on. I encourage everyone to watch it – not for the technique, but for the emotional aspect of it. It hit me and I knew that that was going to be the topic of my next piece. The second reason I wrote this entry was because last week, someone told me that my last blog entry was not from the heart. Funny enough, they were right. It wasn’t. This week, my words come straight from the heart and nothing but.

Happy Sailing.

– Aisha