Somebody that I used to know…

I once read this statement and couldn't agree more; “it is the saddest thing when someone you know, becomes someone you knew.” Personally I think this gets harder as you get older.  Perhaps it is because as we get older we play a genuine part in who we spend our time with or what we share and with whom.  Some people say that you never really truly know anyone, maybe not even ourselves.

Sometimes I don’t even know how or why it happens, this art of someone I know becoming someone I knew.  A couple of occasions, yes, I can tell you exactly what happened.  A couple I cannot.  Maybe we just stop having things in common, maybe we said something that was hurtful, and maybe we just don’t agree with their lifestyle or the choices they make, who knows.  You just grow apart.  Who knows how or why it happens, a variety of reasons I guess.  The time it matters most is when that someone you know happens to be someone you shared a lot with.  Maybe intimately, maybe just a close friend, or who you thought was a close friend.  For me personally, I am affected deeply when someone I know becomes someone I knew.  I think mostly because I put my whole heart and soul into a relationship, any relationship, that when someone is capable of walking away, just completely and utterly ceasing to act as if they know you, that blows my mind.  I have never understood someone who could turn feelings or emotions off like a switch.  Obviously everything happens for a reason and there is something or someone better coming, but it’s still a bitter pill to swallow. 

So, here is a little personal shout out to someone I know, who has now become someone I knew.  It is your loss.  I believe enough time passed that we both knew the kind of person the other one was.  Sometimes when something happens, you just can’t get passed it and it’s the best for all parties involved that you just go back to being total strangers.  It was very one sided and more effort was distributed on my side.  Kind of an unfair balance if you ask me.  Either way, lesson learned.  Friendship means something to me, that it may not to everyone else.  And I would never treat a friend the way you have. 

If you are having trouble deciding between two people, it’s best you take the second.  Because if you truly cared at all about the first one, there wouldn’t be a second.

You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness

Like resignation to the end, always the end

So when we found that we could not make sense

Well you said that we would still be friends

But I'll admit that I was glad it was over…

Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over

But had me believing it was always something that I'd done

But I don't wanna live that way

Reading into every word you say

You said that you could let it go

And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know…

Shit Happens...

What happens?  Shit happens.  That is the cold hard truth.  Every day.  For someone, somewhere, shit happens.  That is what parents should teach their children.  Honestly.  I do believe one time, and I cannot recall why or what had happened, but my father, the man of very few words and even less emotion, said, “Life’s a bitch, and then you die.”  Harsh? Perhaps, but I was a young adult, not a child, so it made more sense.  I wasn’t crazy about this realization, but the reality of it, when you accept it, is simply just the facts. 

I am saying this because I have bad days.  I have real bad days.  I have battled depression since college.  And I say battle because it is a battle.  Kudos to you if you don’t need help in that arena, but that was determined for me before I ever came into this world.  My Great Grandmother from Italy, battled depression.  The commercial, that says depression hurts?  It does.  If you don’t or never have experienced this, you are blessed, but please don’t judge another human who does.  Walk a mile in my moccasins. 

This blog isn’t about depression though; it’s about the fact that I do have bad days.  Are they worse around my period?  DUH.  Regardless, I have them.  And I have a few friends who do not mind telling me, or even my mother for that matter, that when I feel this way, I should simply avoid Facebook, or posting negative things, because, well, it’s depressing, and you are so negative.  Uhhhh, yeah?  Isn’t that the point?  I am sorry, don’t read it.  Unsubscribe from me, de-friend me, whatever you need to do to not see it, but the reality is I DO NOT, and WILL NOT sugar coat things.  If I feel like shit, I am sorry, you will know it.  Shit happens.  I bow to the person who can be positive all day, every day, but we don’t live in the same worlds.  I don’t care who you are, people crack.  They break.  They shatter.  They get tired.  If you go through life not allowing yourself to feel like crap every once in awhile, eventually you are going to come apart. 

For instance, Sister and I are polar opposites.  If you know us at all, you obviously know this.  There is no way in hell we could work together or play together as much as we do, if we weren’t so different.  I wear my heart on my sleeve.  She keeps hers nicely locked up.  She is a fiercely loyal mother, I don’t have children.  She lets shit roll off her like water flows down the stream.  She can compartmentalize and store shit for later discussion, but for me?  I need to deal with it the minute it occurs.  I have no idea why we are this way, she is most like my father and his side of the family and I am very much my mother’s side and we share everything.  EVERY-THING.  Perhaps the biggest difference between Sister and I, is that I am pointedly honest about how I feel and she contains it.  She was also found on a floor, leaving this world one morning (for a ton of reasons.)  I was not.  Does that make her method of dealing with stuff better than mine?  No, that is not what I am saying.  I am saying that by releasing my feelings, good or bad, positive or negative, they have somewhere to go.  I am not saying in any way, that because she keeps her feelings bottled up that she had a seizure and died…but I do know at the moment it happened she was worn out, exhausted, spent; all her resources depleted…which may have been just the nudge her body needed to shut down.  Would it have happened if she were more open about her feelings, probably, because it was going to one way or the other, but I don’t think I will suffer a heart attack or any other medical emergency from holding stress in?  Because, well I just don’t hold it in.

I am not perfect.  Never was.  Never will be.  It does not bother me that people think I am a negative Nellie all the time…I have had some pretty negative shit happen to me.  Is it because I am constantly prepared for the world to dump on me, I don’t know.  I really don’t.  I am negative when I FEEL negative and positive when I FEEL that.  What is wrong with that?  Like I realize that my preference in life is not appreciated or respected by some either.  But I am not going to hide that.  I will not shove it in your face either.  But I will be me.  Gay or straight, happy or sad. 

I realize I control who I allow to hurt me or disappoint me or all of that.  Of course I do.  Some days I am better equipped at dealing with it than others.  I don’t get a heads up on when those days will be.  They just happen.  Shit happens.

The moral of this story?  I am sorry if you feel like I am negative.  I do not have the right way or the wrong way of approaching things, I approach them as is necessary for me to handle them in whatever way I can handle them at the time. 

Today?  Today I will slay anyone or anything that attempts to ruin my happiness.  A few days ago?  Those things would have slayed me.  It’s life.  And life’s a bitch.  And shit happens. 

Expectations...

What is the one thing a person looks for in any relationship?  An intimate one, or a friendship, or with a co-worker, or just an employee/employer?  I don’t know about you, but I want reciprocation.  It’s not even tough.  Certainly not rocket science.  But apparently for some it is…just as hard as sending a rocket to the moon.  If I do something for you, it’s not because I THINK that you should reciprocate, it’s because I KNOW YOU SHOULD.  Give and take.  It’s what makes the world go around no?

I was raised to treat everyone the exact way I wanted to be treated.  No matter what.  No matter who.  No matter how.  No matter when.  So, if that is the case, how does a person like me, treat someone who has mistreated me?  Or for lack of a better word or explanation, someone who has been inconsiderate with my feelings?  I should walk away from that person.  That person should not have any impact on my life right?  If they cannot be considerate with my feelings or treat with me respect, then why are they even in my life?  Interesting philosophy and sounds like a great plan, except we all know that isn’t so.  We all leave far too many people in our lives that can somehow, someway, suck the living breathing life right out of us.  And just about when we think they may just in fact completely do just that, take the life right out of you, they breathe a little bit of life back in and you are convinced they will turn it around and be the person you want them to be.   Well guess what Tiffany and anyone else out there who is listening, you can’t make a person into someone you want them to be.  They either are or they aren’t…you can try, I suppose and you may as well beat your head against the wall while you are at it.

I have expectations, obviously a lot of them.  And apparently that is what is wrong with me.  I expect people to be kind and decent and thoughtful.  Well, it just doesn’t work that way, so you would think instead of constantly, continuously sitting there and waiting for the one thing that is NEVER going to happen, wouldn’t my time best be spent on people who are kind, decent and thoughtful?   

I am tired of being disappointed.  But perhaps I am more tired that I expect that it shouldn't keep happening.  So if you have any suggestions on how to expect NOTHING, from ANYONE, I will take them.

Forgiveness...

I think people would be terribly surprised at how much music goes through my head on a daily basis.  I suppose you could say I am a walking jukebox.  Sometimes, in conversation, someone will say something and I will just finish their sentence by breaking out into song.  Someone will say a word, and I will have lyrics instantly go through my head, where that word may be the focus…doesn’t even have to be the title of the song.  So naturally when I asked where people stood on forgiveness, a song instantly entered my head.  The Heart of the Matter, by Don Henley.  Click here if you would like to hear it for yourself.  The song pretty much sums a lot of stuff up really…the lyrics are pretty spot on.  If you carry around that anger, it WILL eat you up inside.

Here is how I feel about forgiveness.   I decide.  I decide who.  When.  Where.  And how.  It’s that simple.  Regardless of what happened or how it happened, I may forgive, but I will never forget.  A person has to make a choice when someone or something happens that hurts you.  It’s all relative.  I have asked for forgiveness.  I have done and said some stupid things, things that have hurt people.  Probably when I was drinking.  I have never intentionally hurt someone just to hurt them.  I don’t possess that quality.  And trust me I know people who do.  I know a lot of people who do things that later should require being asked to be forgiven, but they refuse…I guess we all beat to our own drummer. 

There is people, alive, breathing, right now, this second, who I will never forgive.  No matter how much time passes or what they could possibly come up with to apologize with.  I can physically look at these human beings and seriously wish they stopped breathing.  OH MY GOD!  Did Tiffany Buckman just say that?  Yes.  I did.   The men involved in attacking my father, (who was a completely innocent bystander and who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,) who walked away completely scot free.  I realize Karma is an actual thing.  But I may not be around to see it.  So to those of you who were involved, AND THERE WAS A LOT OF YOU, I seriously see your faces in public, out enjoying your lives and I seriously want you to rot in hell.  I do not forgive you.  I never will.  I don’t walk around hating you or letting it ruin my life.  If I see you, yes, then I think about it and yes, I hate your life.  I do not lose sleep over it.  I do not carry around anger and resentment.  I simply despise you.  Oh and while we are at it, I also despise the entire police force on duty that night.  I get physically sick to my stomach when I see you out there “protecting and serving.”  Protecting and serving my ass.

While I am on this roll, I may as well tell you there are a few others I don’t or haven’t and won’t forgive as well.  (Totally unrelated to the above mentioned incident.)  I do not forgive the “friends and family” who were involved in the bashing I received in my last relationship.  I don’t know that I ever will.  Perhaps someone involved is reading this right now and perhaps this will answer some questions for you.  There are two sides to every story.  People should seriously get both sides before they involve themselves in a situation that doesn’t involve them.  The things I was called.  The things that were said about me and the bullshit I allowed myself to go through at my own expense, I will never allow another “group” of people to ever do to me again.  I did learn a lot from this experience.  Sadly how to not trust or believe words that come out of people’s mouths, but if anything, to be a little more protective with my heart.

I did not deserve the things you said or the way you treated me.  I did not deserve the following words… “Clean up this mess, and you know it is a mess, and get rid of her, if you want to keep your family intact.”  I feel sorry for these people actually.  Pathetic display of “family” I have ever seen in my life.  Had I been treated like anything other than the subhuman that I was, I would not feel this way.  Unfortunately I wasn’t.  Trust me when I say that no one has gone on with their lives regretting having treated me like that.  They are able to lay their heads on their pillows at night knowing they were cruel and hurtful.  Do they think about it?  No idea?  Do I?  Only when I see them or something reminds me of the situation.  It doesn’t control my life.  I don’t harbor the kind of hate that makes me suffer because I can’t let it go.  I did let it go.  And the bible spouting Christians that they are can deal with God when he is ready to deal with them.  The God I pray to and the Jesus I believe in did not want people treated like this.  So I absolutely adore when bible verses are thrown at me and am condemned because of who I choose to love, even though that very same book they throw in my face, is the same one that does not condone their behavior.  People are interesting.

Anyway…there is my two cents on forgiveness.  I will if I want to.  I won’t if I don’t.  Does it make me a bad person, I don’t know, I am the one that has to live with that.  My lack of forgiveness affects no one but myself, so who gives a shit? 

The bottom line?  To each their own. 

Lonely...

I know Lonely.  Lonely and I go way back.  Lonely and I have known one another for a very long time.  Sometimes Lonely is all I ever had.  I could be Lonely in a group full of people.  I could be Lonely, by myself, which makes entirely more sense.  Some people think I experience Lonely because I live "downstairs."  For God's sake, Lonely doesn't discriminate...it doesn't give a shit if you live upstairs, downstairs, inside, outside, condo, cabin...you get the idea.  

The first time I met Lonely, I was a Freshman in college.  It was actually one of the scariest times in my life.  Meeting Lonely.  But eventually I learned how to deal with Lonely and although I would not say that we are necessarily friends, I have come to accept that Lonely is just going to be around whether I like it or not and it is easier to deal with if I accept it.  Sometimes Lonely is a welcome reprieve.

I have been "alone" pretty much my whole life.  Meaning without a significant other.  I blame a lot of things for that.  Mostly myself, but don't mistake having made that choice as for what is responsible for being Lonely.  You can be with someone and be very Lonely.  Again, Lonely doesn't discriminate.

Where am I going with this?  Right here.  I am going right here.  I took Brodie out the other night and it was probably about 11:00PM.  He likes to take his sweet time and I really can't see him in the dark so I was just looking at the stars, the moon, the sky, my Grandma's house.  I noticed her bedroom light was on, but so was the living room light, so I knew she was probably getting ready for bed.  I didn't get worried about her in the sense that something was wrong, because she has a LifeAlert and I know she will use it.  I wasn't even worried.  I was sad.  Deeply and profoundly moved sad.  Why?  Now there is someone who know's Lonely.  She just met Lonely head on a week or so ago.  I cannot imagine spending 60 years of my life with someone.  Well, that is not even possible for me now, but either way, I cannot imagine that and in one second, one breath, it's just gone.  I know my Grandpa was 90 years old, I am not saying it wasn't his time, it was a blessing.  I am talking about the instantaneous way her life changed.  For the last 10 years she has pretty much taken care of him 24 hours a day and now he is just gone. That is a Lonely I frankly don't care to ever meet.

I asked her the other day how she was doing and she said she was walking around in circles, lost.  And that I was incredibly smart to never get married...that the paperwork was hard when one of you "goes away"...it was so very sad to hear her say these things.  

Lonely is over at Grandma's house and I suppose it will be there awhile...I can't ask it to leave, it will come and go as it pleases...but it put a new perspective on MY Lonely...I am not going to say I appreciate mine more but I can say I am now empathetic to all the different Lonely's out there, because let's be honest.  There are no two Lonely's the same.