Yeah this isn’t facebook but the message is important.

This past week a young teenage girl from the neighborhood took her own life. I didn’t know the family directly but immediately my heart became burdened for them. Up until last year I never knew anyone that had committed suicide. When it directly impacted me it changed my perspective on mental illness forever. I use to whole heartily believe there were giant flashing signs pointing down on the person indicating that they were depressed or anxious. I could not have been more wrong. Yes, sometimes there are signs but the more terrifying fact is that most of the times there aren’t any. While I knew my close one had bouts of anxiety I never ever imagined the levels to which it obviously weighed on her. In fact, she was always so happy. She was unnervingly upbeat. She was always smiling. Her passing rocked me to my core and made me realize that no matter what, you can never know what another person is tormented with. This young girl’s family will forever be impacted just as the family of my close one. The absence of their young lives will be felt every day in every moment. It will never go away. It changes you. This is a sentence that no one should have to endure. While I don’t think we will ever live in a world without suicide, I do hope we start living in one that is better able to understand mental illness so it declines, significantly.

If you think I am a negative person you don't know me. I am not. I am one of the most happily content people you will ever meet. I am almost certain if you are finding me negative it's bc one of these rants directly applies to you and rather than admitting your irritating behavior you continue to make excuses for yourself.

I am going to get some nasty looks for this one…

You think YOUR kid is the cutest? Of course you do. I understand that you think your kid is cute and I’m going to continue letting you believe that.

Now please give me something in return, if any of the information below pertains to you, please stop trying to convince me that you have the cutest, bestest, smartest child in the world. I don’t think your kid is cute or smart. Really. I don’t. Besides the fact that I have my own flesh and blood that I adore more than any relevance you could ever bring to my life, here are a few other reasons.

You have to think that your screaming monster of a child is a precious, one-of-a-kind wonder. Otherwise, I imagine you would look in the mirror and ask yourself, “How did my life go so terribly terribly wrong?” The thing is I don’t need to get in on this justification. No, I don’t think YOUR kid is the cutest whatever EVER. I am totally acting when I’m smiling and nodding my head at your ridiculous statements. It’s by no means an accurate reflection of what is going on in my mind. Honestly even if by chance you showed me a decent photo of your way to coddled spawn, Whiney McWhinesallot’s past behavior and your lack of situational awareness would prevail and I could never in right mind see your child as cute.
Want to know the truth? Other people can’t love your kid as much as you do. You might think your kid jumping up and down in an airplane or restaurant booth is your child being social or that having a nuclear meltdown in the mall is it expressing it’s feelings. You deem this behavior as cute but the truth is- nobody else does. In fact, this behavior that you think is soooooo cute makes others, or maybe just me, so angry that I have to hold back every urge in my body not to lose my mind and verbally attack you for the annoyance your delusion is causing me.
When your brat of a child acts like this, I get you think it is age appropriate but do you ever think it’s anything other than cute to the other people that have to share your surroundings? No! Seriously, the stares of distain aren’t getting their point across? OK well maybe this post (if you ever read) will help. I would flat out say get real but it is obvious reality escapes you. At this point nothing will make you take of your rose colored glasses when it comes to your not cute or that smart kid but I ranted and got it out so it doesn’t matter. I feel better.

FUNNIES

Seriously...



TRUTH



This was totally written for ME!



Oh Gregory, how I love you!

I have a short fuse when people either A-argue with me on something that I absolutely without a doubt know that I am right about or B-something in which CLEARLY they themselves have no understanding of.

An overweight person giving me advice on dieting- fuse blown.
An out of shape person giving me advice on working out- fuse blown.
A non military affiliated person giving me advice on a military affiliated issue- fuse blown.

Luckily in my mid thirties my fuse blowing is all internalized so I don’t turn into cra cra Ayme but I might throw death eye daggers.
I am not always right except when I am. There are certain things in my knowledge base that are there either through something I learned in school or something that I have seen with my own eyes. I have tried to distance myself from these know-it-alls just to stumble into a relationship with another. I think that I am going to introduce all my know-it-all acquaintances to each other, throw in a random comment and sit back and watch. That at least would give me some entertainment!

Opinions.

o•pin•ion
əˈpinyən
noun

-a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.
"I'm writing to voice my opinion on an issue of great importance"
synonyms : belief, judgment, thought(s), (way of) thinking, mind, (point of) view,viewpoint, outlook, attitude, stance, position

So we all have opinions. I get it. What I absolutely don’t get is people that get all huffy puffy when you don’t share theirs. Why Why WHYYYYY must certain people insist you agree with them? Will it pay their mortgage? Will it heal their sick grandma? Will it unclog their toilet? I really want to know. I determined long ago that I will not see eye to eye with everyone on everything. I can still co-exist and even be friends with someone whose viewpoints I don’t share. It’s called being an adult. It called ACCEPTANCE. A rant is not going to make me “side” with you. In fact, I will probably move you to my intolerant belligerent bigot category.

So I got Snape in a “which character would you be in Harry Potter?” online thing and I felt the description was fairly fitting. Then I started thinking about friendships and how they have come and gone in my life and the reasons why. I am not a tit for tat kind of friend. I don’t keep score. I do what I can when I can and don’t expect anything in return. That being said, when a friendship is at an 80%/20% ratio, you notice. Last year around this time I had several acquaintances that I was extending the branches of friendship to. I would take food when I had extra, invite them to dinner and always text to go do whatever. It worked for a while. It was nice. Then something one day caused me to take note and say to myself, wait a minute… I have never been brought food, or been invited to dinner or asked to go do whatever. I also KNEW that others had been extended invitations for dinners or “a girl’s day”. Now at the beginning there were some genuinely nice things that were done for me don’t get me wrong, but it had been a long time since I had been the recipient of anything that I had not initiated. It had been a while since I actually felt valued. My observant husband saw me slowly retreating and told me to completely withdraw and see if it was noticed. I did. I was really saddened when my absence was met with silence and not with a flurry of are you OK texts, or I haven’t seen you in a hot minute- you alive? One “friend” I haven’t spoken to in 5 months, the other 3. I started to wonder if I had done something to offend. I don’t think so… Finally I determined I hadn’t- I just wasn’t missed.

I get people become busy with the day to day (hello I have 3 kids!) but a text isn’t hard to send or a FB message doesn’t take hours to compose. There are tons of ways to communicate that don’t take a lot of time or energy but make a huge difference. In a way I am glad to now know these people were fair weathered. I am glad I only invested the time that I did and didn’t waste years but it still makes me a little sad to know I went at it with a different heart than the others did. It would have been nice to have had friends close by. I don’t open up often so that makes the sting burn a little more I think. So I am back to my little circle of girlies that may not be up the street but are always close by.