You tend your garden, I will worry about mine

Coming from the person who has vowed to put Christmas back in the hearts of those who are missing it; this is probably not going to be one of my more “positive” blogs.

It is impossible to have a “good” day every single day and if you do, well, I want whatever you are taking, because I personally do not live in that kind of world.  I admittedly was a more “cup half full” person many moons ago, in my other life.  Maybe getting older changes you.  Maybe making sacrifices changes you.  Maybe sometimes you just open your eyes and you realize, wow, the world isn’t as positive a place as I always made it out to be.  I really do not know which the better way to live…is with your blinders on or in reality?  And then you have those that will tell you reality is what you make it.  Really?  Reality is simply what it really is.  I suppose how you DEAL with reality is the key.

I had one of those weekends that had its moments of highs and lows.  However, it was also one of those weekends where I felt like by just simply breathing, I pissed people off.  So I did something I don’t normally do and I just disappeared.  I really don’t enjoy nor do I appreciate having to explain myself to anyone.  Occasionally I have to do it with my family, which most of the times aren’t necessary either, but somehow they feel obligated to make me explain myself.

If I have said it once I have said it more times than I can count.  Right now, where I live and what I do does not affect anyone.  And what I mean is that I am not costing anyone else any money.  No one else has to sleep with me.  And above all I am NOT, contrary to popular belief, affecting anyone else’s family.  But apparently I was and didn’t even know it.

I would venture a guess that most people, even friends, would be amazed at how I wake up every single day.  It is quite possible that I make things harder for myself than I need to.  People do know that though, so I am always so stunned when some of them make it a point to purposely make things harder for me. 

From Friday morning until this morning, my actions, or lack of actions, my comments, or lack of comments, my choices or lack of choices, and my motive or lack of motive was in question.  I spent three straight days of feeling like I was under a microscope and for what?  Because it makes other people feel better if they can ultimately just blame me?  Or question me?  I am pretty sure we all know that I do not have the ability to just say, whatever, and walk away.  I will spend more than adequate time analyzing something until I have analyzed it so much that it can’t possibly be done again.  Is anyone asking me to bear the weight of the world on my shoulders?  No, I just do.  And if you know that and care about me and then turn around and purposely add to that?  Well, it hurts a person in ways I bet most people don’t realize. 

The last time I checked, my presence in the world was not putting a financial, emotional, mental or physical strain on anyone else’s life whatsoever.  I suppose my Dad would argue that I use water and electricity and heat and I eat.  In reality, I spend most of the time in the dark, I don’t mind being cold, I eat the food I pay for, and I try to maintain normal healthy hygiene, so yeah, I guess I am using up a few gallons of water each week to bathe.  I do laundry once a week.  He does it twice a day.  I suppose if I am causing him so much hardship, I will be more than happy to leave.  What a lonely place that would be to have to live alone in a four bedroom, three bathroom house surrounded by all of moms things.

Yes, my mother’s things are still there.  She can have them when he says she can.  My mother has been gone going on 3 years now. 

This weekend kind of revolved around my mom actually.  She got in total, about 12’ of new counter tops.  The old ones were probably the least modern item in her home and I told her if she ever considered getting new ones, I knew a guy from Chicago whose job that was.  It would never hurt to ask.  This process actually took a few months.  He sent samples; she fell in love with one of them.  My mom has never had anything of her own her entire life.   There is more back story to how I know this gentleman, however when I approached him about them, I was in no way prepared for the ramifications of asking him to give us some ideas.  I honestly didn’t consider that he would even do them considering his location and distance, but mom was in luck, he had some pieces from a previous job which would mean not having to special order it.

His coming to do these counter tops took several weeks, months in reality.  It wasn’t premeditated, or done in an attempt to hurt anyone’s feelings or piss people off, but somehow it did.  I didn’t know he was coming until the morning before.  When someone does you a favor of this magnitude, you make the necessary adjustments to accommodate them.  It was done in an attempt to get my mom something she could be proud of, something that would make her happy.  I know few people who deserve it more than she does.  However, by the time they were installed, I had been questioned on why I had asked him (he is the only person I know that does this,) why he would do it in the first place if it was such a small job (he had pieces leftover,) how he knew the sizes she needed if he had not been down prior to this to measure (Terry and I did it ourselves and to perfection I might add,) how much it was costing my mother (umm why,) where he was staying the night (again, why,) why he thought it was acceptable to return to the area (he was genuinely doing me a favor,) where my mother got the money for it…that is really just to name a few.  My reaction?  First was oh my God.  Followed by, who the F cares.  Followed by, what business is this of anyone other than my mom’s?  I could not wrap my hands around how my mom getting new counters could affect anyone else’s lives, but boy it sure did.  I also could not wrap my hands around how my asking him in the first place could be looked at as a dig or some conspiracy towards others.  It had nothing to do with anyone else but my mother.  He asked me to contact some people and let them know he was in town.  I thought it was odd, but you know me, I do what is asked.  That information was not received well, as I would expect, but making it be more than just a guy down to install counters, was when it went completely south. 

In total his time in “the area” was less than 15 hours.  I was extremely appreciative that he drove down here for that.  I had no idea that it would cause people to have to leave town, or cause them to say the hurtful things that were said, especially about and towards me.  I really don’t understand how it had anything to do with anyone else.  I guess I am naïve in that respect.  The short time that he was here, no words were spoken of the past.  Hard to believe but they weren’t.  In fact, he did not ask a single question in regards to it.  It has been over a year.  I suppose for some people that is not enough time.

Despite how upset this made me, as well as my mom, who couldn’t for the life of her understand what she personally had done wrong, this wasn’t even the part that set me over the edge.  The fact that it turned into an even bigger deal than that was when I reached my breaking point.

Somehow my father became involved and I got to be in the middle of a “where did your mother get the money for this” debacle and more about the divorce that ended in February.  I want it over.  All of it.  The rude comments, the hateful messages, the animosity, the hatefulness, the questions asked of me.  The thing is the people who involved themselves this weekend for reasons I will never know, caused me to suffer consequences that I do not feel I deserved.  All the way down to having to explain why I am never home on the weekends.  Oh, let me see.  It is the only two days I don’t have to work.  Five nights a week I 98% of the time stay home with my son, who happens to have epilepsy and who also happens to be a dog.  I do not take off on the weekends to avoid certain people or things.  But obviously since it is the only time I leave, it must be what I am doing. 

It is no one and I mean NO ONE’S business what this cost my mother.  It is no one’s business what she spends her money on.  It is no one’s business who I choose to talk to, or ask favors of.  This situation was not a carefully plotted out plan to piss people off.  Other people were not even factored into the equation.  Maybe that is where I went wrong, not thinking about how terrible this would be for others and instead just focusing on trying to do something nice for my mom.  How stupid am I?  We pick and choose who we have to answer to in our lives.  We are quite capable of choosing our own battles.  I chose to battle things that have merit and purpose and might make a difference in the world, not things that other people take personally when it has absolutely nothing to do with them.

By far it is one of the things I dislike most about the world that at least I personally live in.  How on earth can the choices I choose to make be taken by another individual to mean that I am doing something to hurt them?  How does it even become about them?

Let me tell anyone who is reading this something that I hope you can remember.  If I have a bone to pick with you, I will pick it with you.  I do not have to send you hateful text messages or say terrible things about you in order to do so.  I have a hard enough time taking care of my own life; I don’t worry about yours or the things that go on in yours.  It is your business, unless you make it my business.  If I am going to set out to make your life miserable with my own personal actions I am going to damn sure make sure you know it, because I for one, would not want you to miss it.

 

I officially reached a point where I simply just shut the world off and out yesterday.  It is not something I thought I was capable of doing, but it was necessary for my own sanity.  In fact, I should do it more often.

Mom, I am proud of you.  For so many things.  Mostly for teaching me it is ok to beat to my own drum.  I am sorry that your 12’ of counter space caused such an uproar.  I am not sorry about the way your eyes light up and the happiness something so simple (and hardly sinister) brings you.  You have waited a very long time for this.  I hope you enjoy them. 

It doesn’t bother me when people talk about me; it means they are leaving someone else alone.  Just make sure you know what you are talking about.  That kind of crap can come back and really bite you in the ass.  And anyone who wants to suggest I made a bigger deal out of this than was necessary?  I suggest you take a step back and ask yourself if the way and manner in which you involved yourself was really necessary in the first place.  I would be dead ten times over if my purpose on this earth was to make others happy.