My ‘get-out-of-hell-free’ card
So I would like to think I’m a decent person. Caring, compassionate, decent, relatively moral — all that jazz. Some days, anyway. 😉
And lately, I’ve been feeling yucky because I just can’t muster it up for some people. I’m not a fan of faking orgasms and I really don’t want to go on and fake the whole damn relationship.
I wonder why it doesn’t bother me when I can’t make peace with someone. Don’t get me wrong — I have to come to terms with my feelings for (or against) them in my own mind, but then I’m fine. I have to be. I have other shit to worry about and, more importantly, other people to care about.
I admit, the godless heathen witch in me is trying, in some small way, to find some religion these days. I get little inspirational notes from Joel Osteen e-mailed to me daily — I call it my “get out of hell free” card because, hey, at least I’m trying over here!
The only problem? When I think about gettin’ a lil “Inspiration in my Inbox,” I think Joel and I clearly have opposing ideas about the delivery of it! 😉
Anyway, I get sort of bitter when I get those little notes telling me I have to be nice and make peace with everyone and never give up on people and direct my energies to restoring broken ties. Pfft. Really? You mean I should go call people who have threatened to ruin me and say hi instead of calling my mom? So I should go have lunch with someone else who throws tantrums on a regular basis despite the fact that they’re pushing 50 years of age, instead of giving a hug to someone whose arms I want to be in?
Yeah, yeah I get it — we should be able to do it all. But I’m really struggling to see how it makes me a better person to grit my teeth and swallow the bile in my throat instead of — gee, I don’t know — turning on some feel-good music and spending my precious free moments being happy.
I’m not saying I’m right. I’m just saying I don’t understand. My mom and I call it “licking dick” — being unnecessarily nice to unnecessary individuals, oftentimes in payback of (or in preparation for) a favor. Shouldn’t I find the best one to, ah, partake of instead of one who makes me gag? 😉
Someone recently asked me a question about someone who has said/done enough things to really turn me against them, and I tried to be good. My initial reaction was, “There’s something about that person that makes me irrational, and I find myself unable to form an unbiased opinion.” I was proud of myself, although once you get me talking, you know I can find about 40 stories to share — hence why I have to get drunk off several rounds of cups of shut-the-fuck-up.
It brings me back to when I supervised Incoherent Twit, the product of nepotism from an equally deranged CEO. I was constantly caught in the middle of their craziness. At first, I thought this was my cross to bear — some form of life transformation I needed to achieve, so I had to endure the reign of terror from above and the downright rebellion from below. I gave it a year to the day and decided I had to preserve myself — that whatever the life lesson was supposed to be, it ended up being, “Run for your life!”
The thing is, I feel like a bad person when I can’t overcome my distaste. But at least when I’m feeling icky, I’m feeling something. I wonder sometimes if that’s better than simply looking through someone and not seeing them anymore — like, at least there’s hope if they still get under my skin. Then again, like all scarred flesh, at some point it has to become tough and resistant to outside forces. You can’t be hurt in the same way more than once.
I don’t know. I guess I fluctuate between wanting to be the better person and just not wanting to deal with people who suck the soul out of my body. My ultimate question, then, is whose feelings are more important for me to save/spare — theirs or mine?