You Obviously Didn't Hear What I Said

so i just sent an email update around to my contacts, friends and family and people i know who have been supportive of me in various ways during the past few years while i've been living abroad and working on my phd.  it's submitted now, and my viva is in ten days.  yay for that. 

however, everything else in my life is up in the air.  i have no visa currently, because the visa people haven't dealt with my application from back in april.  which means i might not be able to apply for the post-study visa i've been planning on getting forever since i started this program here.  and if i can't do that, then i'll have to go back 'home', which is NOT home anymore.  i. do. not. want. to. go. back.

i detailed both these things in the email, and then asked for people to pray with me, if they are the praying kind.  for peace of mind in the viva, so i don't break down in tears-- crying being my default reaction to any strong emotion, and completely beyond my control to stop.  which could be embarrassing in an academic meeting of that sort.  =S  but also for peace of mind as to what to do in the future-- because i don't have peace about any of my options just now.  if it were just financial, there is only one obvious choice.  if it were just emotional and what i want, there is only one obvious choice.  but it's a mix of those things, and things outside my control.  and i have no peace about any of the options that i can see before me just now.  so i asked for people to pray with me in this. 

so what did some woman i don't even know write back?  my mum apparently forwarded my email to all the people she works with (wonderful.  really. *sarcasm*), and so this woman writes back-- oh yes, i'll be praying for you in the middle of the night when you have your viva (the time difference makes it not a convenient time for most of the people i know in other parts of the world), and then, i quote:

'as for discernment of the future, i think your mama would like you to come home.'

seriously, woman?  did you not just read my email?  it's not home to me now, and i do not want to be there.  i don't give a damn about what my mum would like.  even if i have to move back there, i will NOT be living with or near my mum.  ever.  i love her, but only from a distance.  so i do not care one bit what she wants. 

how does what she wants have any place in my discernment?  it doesn't.  and it shouldn't.  this is my fucking life, and i'm going to make my own fucking choices.  i've spent too damn long having to be and do what my mum expected from me, and i'm not doing it any more.  so either do what i ask, or don't do anything.  bitch.

i hope they burn in hell

and that's only a slight exaggeration.

some jerks broke into our flat this week.  the one day i was out, meeting a friend for lunch.  i was gone two hours, and when i got back couldn't get in.  our lock was broken.  we've had trouble with it before, so i thought it was just acting up.  when we finally forced the door, my flatmate and i, we still didn't really see anything amiss.  till i went to check my email, and my laptop was gone.  and the laptop a friend was loaning me so my own laptop doesn't overheat and shut down and lose my thesis.  and the thumb drive with all my work from the past six years.  and my filofax.  and two chequebooks.  and a wallet with us cash and cards.  and my flatmate's broken laptop.  and his camera with all his photos from his last holiday.  and his filofax.  and his gold chain. 

mostly i was angry about losing all my work.  my thesis.  everything but the last draft i'd emailed to my supervisor, because he still had it in email form.  two weeks' of work, completely gone.  six years of random bits and smaller pieces, completely gone.  and i'm supposed to submit in a month, and now i'm totally demoralised and don't want to do anything. 

those assholes.  i hope they get caught.  i hope they get nothing for the stuff they took.  i hope they suffer horribly from painful and humiliating diseases because of the time and energy they stole from me.  bastards.

it's not really opinion when it's also true

i have this friend whom i really, truly, deeply love.  he's one of my very best friends, and i would do anything for him.  which meant sitting on the phone, on an international call, for six hours the other night. 

six hours, people.  that's a long time.  and no speaker-phone, either.  my ears still hurt. 

but i love him, so i listened.  over and over and over again.  and said the same things over and over and over again, because they are really the only things i can say. 

see, he's been not taking my advice... and it's come back to bite him.  he now knows he should have listened to me.  i knew wherein i spoke.  twice now that's been proven true.  this third time is by far the worst, and even though he knows i'm right, he still refers to it as my 'opinion' and clings to his own desperate path. 

it will end in more tears, i tell ya.  lots and lots more tears.  i know.  i've been there.

yes, it's about a girl.  and yes, she is the one in the wrong yet with all the power.  and yes, he thinks she is the only one for him ever again and that if this ends then his life ends.  i am not sure that he means that literally, but i know he believes that he'll never love again and will die miserable and alone. 

how do i get him to hear me? i really have been there, in a situation very, very similar to this one.  my ex and this girl could be related, seriously.  and i thought i'd never get over it.  and here i am, a decade later.  but because i didn't let go when i should have, because i let it drag on and on, i was about a gazillion times worse when it did end than i would have been.  and i still feel like a fool about it, because i knew then that i should end it, and didn't.  that i kept hoping, kept giving it one more try, kept thinking that this time would be different.  stupid, stupid me. 

now stupid, stupid friend.  and he just isn't hearing it.  i don't want him to hurt any more than he is now, and that is considerable.  but i also cannot pray for or support his desire for this to continue and somehow work out.  i don't think it will. 

so why won't he do what i say when i've been proven so, so right?  and how do i be a real friend when i think he's an idiot and don't agree with what he wants?