I didn't realize until this year, how many packages evil comes in, and sometimes it wears a face that seems innocent or vulnerable.
For years as a reporter, I have previously seen evil done to other people, with me as the objective observer, battling on other people's behalf, trying to make sure that evil gets put back where it belongs. It was never anything personal. It rarely came after me -- at least not unexpectedly. When it did, I always knew it was coming, partly because I had somehow challenged it, and knew that I could ward it off when it came.
This year, I got blindsided, becoming a target of someone's agenda -- evil hiding behind a face I trusted, using a voice so sweet I never suspected it until too late -- a puppet show in which even the puppet was deluded into thinking it was on the inside of some great scheme, clawing its way to some level of importance it would never achieve -- as much of victim of the puppet master as I was, because puppets rarely know they are being used or for what purpose, and then are tossed away when unneeded.
My friend said, "what doesn't kill you, makes your stronger," which is true enough, except that sometimes, when you get wounded deeply enough, something changes in you, a vision of the world changes, and you see just how mean spirited the world can be, and how dark inside some people are who you have known for years.
You can't go back and pretend the world is a good place. It isn't. Some people in it are good. But not the puppet masters or their puppets.
In the end, the only thing you can do with evil is resist it, and the only thing you can do with puppets is to cut their strings. Nothing heals the wound a poison blade inflicts. That you have to live with.