My life is very different than anyone else I know, especially anyone at least ten years younger than me. Being that I’m significantly older I find I relate less and less to my younger friends. I have Haley, Cole, and Avery to consider and set examples for. I have Maggie to help take care of and keep sane. I have a house to keep up and a thousand things I take responsibility for that are all on me, if it doesn’t all get done I have no one else to blame for it.
Damien and I have friends closer to my age who consistently look at us like we’re from another planet when he or I discuss situations like the current one going on and I have to wonder why I even bother sometimes. These are friends who NEVER have anything negative to say about anyone, let alone form cliques and “inner circles” and sustain the same dramatics that curiously keep finding them around despite all the insistance that they try to live without it. Friends who never get into fights with other friends, let alone pick them. Friends who don’t bash others to make themselves feel better, there is no need and it wouldn’t even occur to them in the first place. I feel more at ease with these folks and more like this is normal behavior - because it is.
Times like these, I cannot help but wonder the same thing. None of this makes sense to me, none of it could. You can paint any color you want to on “wrong”, it’s still “wrong” no matter how many layers you put on it. All the painting does is make a bad situation worse. You can rationalize and justify and bring up any number of other things to argue yourself out of your own failures and shortcomings, but they’re still yours and you own them - and if you choose to act like you don’t it doesn’t matter because the rest of us know you do. It’s damned convenient to take the easy way out and point fingers and accuse while simultaneously chastising others for doing the same exact things you’re doing, trust me I know - that typifies my parents, let alone anyone else. I’ve watched as people have behaved like a pack of bloodthirsty animals tearing apart people they’ve claimed love for, and for what? The things being offered - the alleged lies, shit talking, betrayal, etc. - all that shit, just like anything else can just as easily be held up to scrutiny. I’m closer to Maggie than I am to any other person on earth, and yet I’ll still call her on her own stuff in a minute just like I expect her to do the same for me. She never gets defensive, just hears me out and I do the same for her. My standards for what is acceptable behavior and what I’ll be complacent about, comparatively speaking, are higher than average, and rightly so. Goddamned right I’m arrogant, self righteous, and indignant, I have cause to be. Slag me off all you want for it, it wouldn’t be the first time and I’ll still find it just as meaningless. I’m the only who has to look in the mirror and like myself and my choices everyday, and it all comes down to what I can live with and what I can’t.
There is always more than what you think you know. That’s what’s interesting here, I search for any scrap of evidence I can find and keep it on the back burner and get told “You don’t know the whole story completely and totally”, like I’m that transparent and feebleminded. Like I’d be stupid enough to take the first thing someone says to me and immediately take it as the gospel without considering its fallability. If I wouldn’t do that for God and the bible, as important as they are to the world in general, why would I do that for anyone or anything else? Something else I find remarkable, something quite extraordinary. The fact that for as hurt as Renea has been from what she’s been accused of, for as ugly as it has gotten and as much betrayal as she feels she is entitled to, I’ve yet to hear her say one bad thing or wish anything awful. Instead she just takes it. What is so extraordinary about this? The fact that she can, considering. At least when her mother was beating the shit out of her and terrorizing her on a daily basis she didn
‘t do it claiming to have ever been anything more than that before. Pretty astounding.
I know some of my friendships are in jeopardy, and I accept that. Don’t like it, but not for the reasons I normally would’ve thought. It’s because I feel really short changed and a plethora of other emotions, but those are mine to keep or let go of and I’ll do that on my own sooner or later. It isn’t my love in question here, it’s my respect. I’m fully prepared to be turned on and equally cast aside, and frankly I almost expect it. Again, wouldn’t be the first time. If I’m right, and according to people I’ve consulted who are removed from this situation and don’t have anything to do with it, that would be predictable. It’s the analogy that if they will do this to one when the chips are down, they will do it to all. I’ve even been prepped for having my own words turned against me and used as clubs to beat me with, having seen it before as a defense when there is no other. Saying something and then going back and backpedaling on it. Saying one thing, calling it something else. Hell - that right there - what does that say about all of this?
They say you reap what you sow. For all the times I’ve ever allowed this complacency of myself before now, shame on me. If that’s the only cross I have to bear, then I’m grateful for that at least. At the very least it’s something I can accept.
