I have never claimed to be Saintly. Never marked myself a martyr or painted myself as a modern day Joan of Arc. If and when I screw up, I admit it. I try to fix it. Albeit in my opinion its not that often and is usually in the form of the morons I have chosen to date, but I digress.
The moral of the story is, I don't think I am the world's greatest, but I know I am not a bad person.
I try not to litter. I put the cap back on the toothpaste and I turn off lights in rooms if I'm not in them. I help run the Relay for Life in a local town, and not just as a team member, but as a committee member. I do work on my work's United Way campaign. I donate spare change to Veteran's and local school kids outside of supermarkets. I'm not Satan.
Have I made mistakes? Yes. Pissed people off? Most likely. Done it on purpose? Probably not.
Why is that THOSE are the things you are remembered for? Not the fact that you maybe set someone up with their future husband? Held their hair back when they were sick and no one else gave a shit? NO, they remember that you were a moron with money in your early 20's and have been trying to dig yourself out every since or that you made a few bad decisions. Who hasn't?
They remember you getting yourself into bad relationship after bad relationship. Not, of course remembering being told in Health class in high school that once you've been in an abusive relationship (and yes folks, emotional abuse is sometimes just as bad as physical...and there was some physical I just wasn't always upfront about it) you tend to repeat the pattern. Why? Because you get to a point where you don't FEEL you deserve better than that, they make you feel that way.
So you go from one person to the next, getting beaten down lower and lower into yourself. NO one on the outside really knows what’s going on because you're too afraid to talk about it, and well you have a child now and that's your main focus. And lucky for me I got out of it, smartened up and tried like hell to break said pattern of repetitive douche-baggery.
I wrote about being raped at 16 in an effort to try to educate others about being raped. I tried to cope with it, in a PTSD sort of way in my late teens and early 20's in a promiscuitive manner you may say. I would use men for what I wanted, as they did me, and cast them aside. Sure it may have been wrong, but I had been wronged. But it didn't last long.
I learned from my mistakes. I paid for them MY way. In my life yes. 30 years of all kinds of Hell. Some from my own doing, admittedly so. Mostly though, not so much.
I try not to litter. I put the cap back on the toothpaste and I turn off lights in rooms if I'm not in them. I help run the Relay for Life in a local town, and not just as a team member, but as a committee member. I do work on my work's United Way campaign. I donate spare change to Veteran's and local school kids outside of supermarkets. I'm not Satan.
Have I made mistakes? Yes. Pissed people off? Most likely. Done it on purpose? Probably not.
Why is that THOSE are the things you are remembered for? Not the fact that you maybe set someone up with their future husband? Held their hair back when they were sick and no one else gave a shit? NO, they remember that you were a moron with money in your early 20's and have been trying to dig yourself out every since or that you made a few bad decisions. Who hasn't?
They remember you getting yourself into bad relationship after bad relationship. Not, of course remembering being told in Health class in high school that once you've been in an abusive relationship (and yes folks, emotional abuse is sometimes just as bad as physical...and there was some physical I just wasn't always upfront about it) you tend to repeat the pattern. Why? Because you get to a point where you don't FEEL you deserve better than that, they make you feel that way.
So you go from one person to the next, getting beaten down lower and lower into yourself. NO one on the outside really knows what’s going on because you're too afraid to talk about it, and well you have a child now and that's your main focus. And lucky for me I got out of it, smartened up and tried like hell to break said pattern of repetitive douche-baggery.
I wrote about being raped at 16 in an effort to try to educate others about being raped. I tried to cope with it, in a PTSD sort of way in my late teens and early 20's in a promiscuitive manner you may say. I would use men for what I wanted, as they did me, and cast them aside. Sure it may have been wrong, but I had been wronged. But it didn't last long.
I learned from my mistakes. I paid for them MY way. In my life yes. 30 years of all kinds of Hell. Some from my own doing, admittedly so. Mostly though, not so much.
Did I deserve to be raped? NO. Did I deserve to be abused? NO. Did I deserve to struggle? Maybe I did; I was careless and young and stupid with money, I have never denied that. Did I deserve to know what its like to lose a parent so young? NO
And yet, anonymously or not, people cast stones. Throw hollow opinions about what they think they know about anything I am going through. Try to look from the outside through their rose colored glasses.
Sure they have troubles, who doesn't? Life is Life after all and no one ever said it was easy. I watched my best friend go through cancer. I sat by her side through 8 hours of a Chemotherapy she was allergic to. Watched her lose her hair, struggle in her own personal relationships and life, and come out stronger and happier than I have ever known her.
I have my own health issues in a body that thinks its a 65 year old man. 3 strokes in a year, a heart condition, asthma, herniated discs and a pending spine surgery all at the age of 30. I take 9 pills a day. 9 pills. Caring for my own aching body as well as my ailing mothers, a woman who's heart still aches over the loss of my father.
And yet, anonymously or not, people cast stones. Throw hollow opinions about what they think they know about anything I am going through. Try to look from the outside through their rose colored glasses.
Sure they have troubles, who doesn't? Life is Life after all and no one ever said it was easy. I watched my best friend go through cancer. I sat by her side through 8 hours of a Chemotherapy she was allergic to. Watched her lose her hair, struggle in her own personal relationships and life, and come out stronger and happier than I have ever known her.
I have my own health issues in a body that thinks its a 65 year old man. 3 strokes in a year, a heart condition, asthma, herniated discs and a pending spine surgery all at the age of 30. I take 9 pills a day. 9 pills. Caring for my own aching body as well as my ailing mothers, a woman who's heart still aches over the loss of my father.
I have had string after string of dysfunctional relationships that have left me wanting more. More for myself and more for my son. I watch everyone around me seemingly happy and successful, and that depresses me. I am not unhappy for them, I am unhappy for myself. And no one can fault me for feeling what I feel.
Through it all I have put the world ahead of myself. Jumped through hoops to make sure that I had done what I could for everyone else, for those I loved, for those I hardly knew. I raised money when I had none. I offered moral support when my own soul was aching. And yet when I write my thoughts, pour my soul the only way I know how, the naysayers find a way to burst that bubble too.
Through it all I have put the world ahead of myself. Jumped through hoops to make sure that I had done what I could for everyone else, for those I loved, for those I hardly knew. I raised money when I had none. I offered moral support when my own soul was aching. And yet when I write my thoughts, pour my soul the only way I know how, the naysayers find a way to burst that bubble too.
Screw those people. I think it's refreshing to find someone as honest as you. Tell me who they are; I'll call them out.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I think it's extremely brave that you write about tragedies in your life. I have also been through a fair amount of shit and spent a lot of young 20s writing about it. Anyone who tells you that you deserve anything bad to happen to you is a cynical, miserable person who has the 6th grade bully complex.
Go on with your bad self.