Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Some Heavy Stuff

I must interrupt this blog series about our family vacation to get some things off my chest.

First, let me be very clear. This blog is my space to write about anything I wish. Writing is very cathartic to me. I am somewhat careful about keeping this reasonably anonymous. I'm sure people could find out who I am if they tried hard enough, but you'll notice I often omit names or details in an effort to just be a little bit faceless on the big ol' Internet.

It is not my intention - EVER - to offend, hurt, or call out anyone on this blog, on any social media site, or anywhere else. Especially not anyone I love. By nature I am not a spiteful or malicious person, with very few exceptions. Those few exceptions would be people who have done really awful things to me personally or those I love. My default disposition is rather sunny with periods of anxiety, worry and generally putting too much pressure on myself.

I have been struggling lately. There are people in my life who have said and done things that, whether I should or not, I have taken personally. I know this is on me. I'm just really tender hearted, like it or not, so when someone accuses me of being cruel or doing or saying mean things, or rejects me, especially for reasons unknown, I take it harder than I probably should.

Combine this with the realization a while back that I don't need to feel obligated to keep people in my life who are toxic, have a negative effect, or who just don't truly care about me, and there's just a shift happening. I really don't make any apologies for my feelings on this. Life is just too short. Thanks to some recent drama that I can't even begin to understand, I have been thinking about pulling away from people in general to try to protect my feelings a little bit.

The first step of my plan was to deactivate my social media accounts. I really didn't want to do that, as there are people that I communicate with primarily through social media and who I would not want to lose touch with. For example, kiddo's birth mom. I definitely don't want to risk losing that tie, and sometimes she is hard to reach any other way but Facebook.

During a much-needed talk with a friend today, I realized something. Well, she made me realize something. Not only can I not control other people's thoughts or behaviors, but people who behave this way will always find something to take issue with. If it's not a post on social media (which I am careful about; I'm not a passive aggressive jerk on social media)... it will be some other random thing.

The whole point is - the issues are theirs, not mine. They can try to make the issues mine (which I believe is usually unintentional), but I don't have to take them on. That is a choice that I have to make. I can be dragged down into the mud, or I can stay upright and just do the best I can to be gracious and forgiving and to love unconditionally. I feel like I have allowed other people's words and actions to dampen those qualities about me. And that's not okay with me. Time to take control back.

As much as I wish I could fix all of this damage and make things better and keep it that way... oh how I wish I could do that... I just can't. The only things I have control of are my thoughts, my words, my actions, and my reactions. So from now on, I am choosing to work on re-sharpening my forgiveness, my gift for putting myself in someone else's shoes, my understanding, and my knack for giving people the benefit of the doubt.

I will be happier and maybe I can make others happy in the process, too.

Win win.