Now, while the theatre organization was not the first and only group to completely mess with my mind and screw me over, I did learn a lesson in all of the drama and back-and-forth that happened. It was a whole game of hear say, people taking sides and people staying completely out of it so that they could at least do community theatre regardless of its corrupt board members and supporting patrons.  In my mind, I was doing what was right.

I thought that opening a non-profit that would actually help people instead of just funding a person’s job.  The opening of the non-profit was personally painful because it was to memorialize my friend, Chris Griffey.  He died by suicide in Washington, DC.  He worked with youth and was pillar in his local community.  To me, Griffey was everything that bravery and courage stood for. 

I opened the organization on the weekend of the Apple Blossom Parade knowing that this would be the prefect exposure that I would need to pilot the programming.  We had people in the space all day doing children’s workshops, adult workshops and an art opening. The space was well received within the business community and the nonprofit sector of St. Joseph.  Everything was fine until I had to rely on friends to make sure that programming happened and social groups didn’t turn into a space where adults vented to minors.  It all started to unravel.  This was when I started taking antidepressants and sleeping aides to just survive. 

I knew I had a made a mistake the moment I was having to rally people to help on something that supposedly the community needed and wanted.  Many friends that benefited from that space never made a single monetary contribution to the success of the organization.  Even when the discussion of dissolving the organization started people didn’t realize that when I was gone the funding would have to come from somewhere.  I had friends that wanted to use the space to benefit themselves monetarily.  The space was opened to counter that way of think.  I wanted to open an organization that was worried about funding programming for the community rather than worry about funding someone’s salary.  It was a mess and I lost all of these people as friends.  It was negative.  It was dark.   

Now, I can see where I grew from this.  I can see where it made me a stronger person.  I had a friend lease part of the space for her hairstylist business and she stole from me.  When I simply asked when I would receive my money, she tried to get a restraining order against me.  I had lost all of my supposed friends and now I was made out to be a violent criminal.  She knew that this would mess with my ability to work with kids and would stay on my record.  This was a complete dick move.  Her Casenet file shows that she owes a local realtor money probably from not paying rent.  I deal with the confusion and anger still to this day about where our friendship went wrong.  The act of screwing me over seems to repeat itself over and over with different faces.

To be continued...