letting go. let it go.

Earlier this year, I met someone with whom I instantly connected. I thought Person X and I were so very similar. We had some of the same household goods, and fashion products, and subscribe to similar eco-friendly companies. It's been a very interesting but more so draining experience to learn that X is not at all what X showcases to the world.

I have a problem with letting go. Anxiety usually has me gripped on some level, and if I felt I've been wronged, watch out. Harboring resentment must have been inherited or something. My husband and father are two shining examples of human beings further emotionally evolved than me.

At the same time, neither of them have this dumb nurturing desire to take care of people. My 29 years have been full of helping others more than I help myself. That's kinda cool, mostly, but not when it's at a disservice to myself. Now that I've come face to face with the most selfish individual I've ever known, I don't think I can do it anymore. Not only have my kindnesses been abused, but my 6th sense is telling me that my name is being bashed by the same person I spent countless nights consoling, feeding, and sometimes holding as tears made both our torsos damp.

You know what's most amusing? Every time I notice any shared bit of information thanks to stupid Facebook from this Person, it's an obvious ploy for attention. Like, so obvious and obnoxious I've wanted to defriend X for months now, but I just can't do it. In part, it's for fear that X will say awful things about me on a public forum. It's not pleasant to roll my eyes every time I see some asinine tidbit that relatively sucks. Well, objectively it sucks, but that's the funny thing with social media: really lame people have ways of making themselves seem really cool and as if they are people of substance.

I will content myself in the truth, for it always has a way of being known. Person X can try to get in good with people who are in my life in whatever form, but the person I am, and the nature of my character, is pretty undeniable. If behaviors are repeated, and I think anyone reading this knows they are, X will burn whatever bridges X is scrambling to build now. And I know this.

If only I could let it go.

I will let it go.

After one last thing: If someone tells you they hate me and doesn't have a single good reason why and instead gets defensive OR someone gets REALLY quiet when you ask them to hang out with me, in a group, and doesn't respond, it's probably because someone knows I know him/her for what he/she truly is and does not want to be exposed.

Good heart?

So, the government is shut down. I guess?

It's interesting how different my life with no television and cable is than those who subscribe to different media outlets.

I'm not proud of this, but the bulk of my info comes from social media. At the same time, it's an instant cross-reference from resources that range from people I knew in elementary school to public figures I've learned to respect through various careers and modes of learning.

A sweet friend of mine posted that the on base commissary will be closed after 8 pm tonight and there is a "huge sale" on all perishable foods.

My father buys most of his groceries from that place, as he is a military vet. I thought of him and wondered if he did his weekly shopping yet.

Then I started to think more... My mom bagged groceries there when I was in middle school. She always had odd jobs, as we were always just above the poverty line. After my father retired from the military, he also stocked some perishable food products and worked in the meat department. Not only did we depend on this institutionally run store for our food, but my parents earned the money with which we purchased this food at the same place. How difficult would this furlough have been to my 12 year old self? My hard-working parents who always barely made ends meet?

I called my dad to inform him of these developments. He was sitting down and paying bills and wasn't aware of the shut down, which is weird, because he has a TV and a Facebook account. Anyway, we start talking about it, why the shutdown even occurred, what affordable healthcare means and should mean, and then I brought up our shared past.

He could tell by the tremble in my voice that I was getting upset and asked me not to. "This doesn't have anything to do with you, Angie," he said, in vain attempt to comfort me. But it DOES. It has everything to do with me. I could be the kid with overworked overstressed underpaid parents in the shit town just outside the army base. I know that kid. I was that kid. My best friend now teaches those kids in the same halls of the middle school we once attended.

So I cried. And we talked some more. And my dad kept saying he knows I have a good heart, but I shouldn't let this stress me out because I have my own stresses.

I don't mind feeling the pain of others. That's fine by me. I'd rather feel it than be numb to it like most others.