I read and re-read words, forwarded to me today, written about me by someone I actually care about, trying to tear me down to someone I greatly trust and admire, and am very close to.. words that are untrue and are vicious and cruel and misguided in their anger. And they hurt. I wonder if, in this person’s anger at the situation, if they think for a moment the impact that this string has on me emotionally… probably not, because they probably didn’t think I’d read it… they probably didn’t think the things they said about someone who has laughed and cried with them over many things over several years would be now skewed with this….new information…mindset…because now that I’m being thought of as “manipulative” and “vindictive”….it makes me question everything, for my actions certainly haven’t ever reflected that….and it pushes my emotions backward. If this had been 7 or 8 years ago, I’d have been in real danger because my thoughts would have jumped to suicidal tendencies immediately….i truly thought that low of myself. And the strangest thing happened tonight..I’d been in a wonderful mood for the last few days, despite the news of yet a 2nd suicide within my own circles of life and my cousins’ passing less than a week ago…I was strangely alright with “life”, and had a booking to sing the national anthem this evening that went well… but I had read these words beforehand, and already felt the hooks of depressed feelings pulling me down. It seemed simply the suggestion that “that’s” who I was could have been enough for me to believe it….and I got very, very sad for a while. Hard enough for me not to be able to shake it for a spell. But I know I’m not vindictive nor am I manipulative. I know I’ve worked my butt off to be kind and caring, and that if/when I am hard on people or if people ever find me “difficult” it’s because I know when to expect more out of people – I’ve had people expect more out of me and it made me grow up, not complain about it. I also know my shortcomings – in being snappish due to overloaded and/or taking on too much and/or not asking/assigning tasks. Working on that. But It made me experience life. I’m the first person to admit when I’ve made a mistake and the first one to try to correct it so I get upset when someone tries to paint an alternate picture or blame their issues or situations on me.
But I’m thankful mainly for my own growth which allowed me to be strong enough now to survive the residual negativity of knowing that someone could be feeling bad enough about themselves that they’d hurl those kinds of words about someone like me, knowing who I truly am, what I have truly done for not only many others but also for them personally, and that knowing that somewhere along the way in the past, I was honestly vulnerable enough that reading those very words could have actually made me take my own life. Definitely not now, for sure, but the sadness wave made me think of the two folks recently lost, the resulting sense of loss, the still stunning “disconnect” between everyone’s sense of reality that seems to have happened…that non tangible “what is that?” …thing….maybe that is what takes over for them. If that is the case, we really cannot ever be mad at those who chose that route, because they truly are not in control. As I told another friend, they do not mean to hurt us when they do decide to leave. I also don’t think that for those who say the words that sometimes throw others to those places….that place of darkness that allows them to get there, well, it’s a place of darkness, sadness, and something similar to that …thing.. in the last few sentences… so getting mad doesn’t help. As I can only do, with all my real self, the only thing that has ever worked, is reserve and offer what love I can and know that’s the only real thing.
Because for the bad things, well, in my childhood, we called those “monsters.”
I’m glad I’m no longer a child.