Did it ever occur to you that when you make broad sweeping statements without considering your audience you are inflicting emotional pain on a fellow human being?
This is not one of those it’s time to be more politically correct pieces…quite frankly I think we have PC’d this world into quite a mess. But that is a story for another day. No today boys and girls I want to talk about just being more aware of the damage we do ever time we open our mouths and spew bile or senseless crap!
I know you are thinking that something had to have set this off …and well you would be right! Actually it is a list of things but with out pointing fingers or naming names I will do my best to address a few of them and I guess expose a bit more of me! (Warning it isn’t all pretty)
I woke up this morning later than usual and just couldn’t seem to get my day going…I got up had a nice breakfast and still couldn’t seem to get myself motivated to kick off my day—so after watching a couple of the Inspector Lindley episodes, I decided to take a book to bed thinking that I would fall asleep reading and wake up in a better frame of mind –6 hours later – I woke in the same funk but with a bit clearer mind. I started examining what was going on in my life that was causing this near paralysis and it dawned on me that I have a presentation coming up – it is time to present my research – or what there is of it anyway. Once again I am to stand before those I respect and admire and say “look what I did” something that usually makes me feel like, what I imagine, a hopeful young child showing their first school art project to his/her loving parents feels like. Since I have become a university student I have yet to be let down…I get loads of praise and support and more constructive criticism that I sometimes want but it never really hurts for I know that the people dolling it out believe in me for some strange reason. For those of you who have been following my journey you know that I struggle with esteem issues (I know who doesn’t right)
But there was something different this time …something that felt different. Then like someone had unlocked the flood gates it hit me… the what is it all for question. Why am I bothering to do this…who am I fooling I’m not good enough…I’m not smart enough. Toxic thoughts that I had managed, or so I believed, to silence some time ago came rushing to my mind …and then like a life preserver my rational mind kicked in (with a little help from Miss Parker on the Pretender – I know strange right) For sometime now I have been letting toxins slowly creep back into my world…not just in the form of food which accounts for my weight struggle but in the form of messages from those who are friends and co-workers… and I have allowed it.
Seven years ago when I freed myself from the toxic hell that was my previous life I vowed to not allow myself to be poisoned again…and to a fair degree I have succeeded. In the beginning I cut myself off from everyone I had no friends I didn’t socialize with co-workers and I didn’t speak to the tattered remains of my family. I more or less withdrew into the quite safety of my home and healed. I needed the solitude…but as we all know that can’t last forever (even though at times I wish it would) no I had to re-enter life and I have but here is where I think I have slipped up…made a mistake or just become too lax.
I have allowed the messages and toxic behavior of others to infect my life again…but this isn’t the abusive cruel toxic sludge… no this is the sneaky odorless gas that creeps into our lives and before we know it we are paralyzed within our own mind once again.
So here we go…. the purge is on!
When you sent me the yellow ribbon letter and said that I was a heartless so in so if I didn’t forward it on.
Did you ever stop to wonder that as a veteran of more than just a military war that I like so many other war wounded (not just physically) have more heart that those of you who send out these silly things but never served a day in your life? That I don’t need a ribbon or tag or email to remind me daily what those who serve in the armed forces face in war and so called peace time?
When you said you believed all women who got pregnant out of wed-lock and put their children up for adoption were shameful and irresponsible.
It cut like a knife…you may not have meant to hurt me I know you didn’t know that 20 years ago I found myself pregnant. That I chose to give that child up for adoption – not for any noble cause just because it is what my heart told me to do. But not one day ever goes by that I don’t think about that choice and wonder if I did the right thing.
When you said that all I needed to do was dumb myself down a bit and men would be interested…that I only need loose a bit of weight and I would have loads of dates.
I know you were trying to be supportive. But after a life time of being told I am stupid I could never hide what I have worked so hard to achieve—I am a bright woman while I may not be a rocket scientist I am not stupid nor will I ever play at being stupid.
As to my weight…well I will never be a supermodel and I will someday be completely ok when I look in the mirror. But I have to find that balance between loving food and wanting to be thin-ish! But any man who can only see the size of my waist as a reason to meet or not meet me or who is threatened by a woman who can talk about more than the weather or latest sale at Macy’s well I don’t know that I really want to meet him either.
When you jokingly said that I would never be a good catch, that no man would want me.
Why didn’t you just shoot me where I stood…now don’t go getting all noble and thinking that “you don’t need a man to complete you” Because I call BULLSHIT – I will now and forever be a work in progress and no man will ever complete me (nor you I suspect – or woman should that be the case) But the thought of spending the rest of my life on this path alone well that is quite sad to me. I don’t know that I believe in “soul-mates” but one thing I do know is that I miss having someone’s arms around me when I watch a sad movie, that when I come home at the end of the day good or bad I always loved having someone there to share that with – and more than anything I miss waking up in the morning to the warm secure feeling that there is one other person in this world that understands the way I think and that even if they don’t always understand they at least love me anyway. There are many small things that I miss about having a man in my life…but never mistake my lack of one for not wanting one…I just have higher standards these days is all.
So from this moment forward I vow to speak up (not lash out) when my feelings are dinged…to shield myself form the build up of negative energy and toxins in my heart, mind, body and soul.
We don’t have to see eye to eye but we don’t have to hurt each other either!
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