CLICK HERE FOR THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES »

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Rewriting Summer

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.
-Oscar Wilde

Okay so the sun has been shining, the earth is warm, the air is humid and we should all be smiling. So... are you?

Last summer I had a blast with new friends I had made at Mohegan Sun. While things got a little hairy with my one friend (let's call her Eve), we still managed to go dancing all the time, party and have a great time.

However, when August rolled around, getting closer to September, there was trouble in paradise. The friends I had made started to hit a rough patch and through that time, it had devistated me. We were all fighting and clawing at each other's throats. How did things get so out of hand? Some of them went back to school and some of them came home on the weekends to work. Things mellowed out for a while, but it didn't really last.

Naturally, there was a falling out. To make a long story short, girls fight dirty. Why? Jealous, competition and greed get in the way really fast and I'm not that kind of a person who gets into it, I just get stuck in it. So the winter was rough without being friends with Eve because I missed her. That slowly shifted and we apologized to each other and moved on. Then it was my other friend I had to get rid of because she was getting so full of herself I thought her head may explode and we'd all die from the nuclear explosion. She had to go.

Now it's the cusp of summer where warm days are a lot closer together and hopefully the sun is warming up the ocean so we can go swimming. People are getting sunburned and didn't know they could and the drama... Yes, the drama has started back up again.

Eve graduated school and celebrated her 22nd birthday with a sour puss on her face. I had offered to help her by even telling her I'd take time off of work to spend the day with her. I was willing to help her with her problems. But she was distant and I before I knew it, the whistle had blown and the games had begun.

Here's where the lesson comes in. I didn't stay on the field. I realized where I was standing, said a few words to her to let her know I didn't want to play and I left.

Last year this would have been impossible! I cried about Eve and the mess that was around us all. Everything was foggy and I couldn't see who was throwing the ball around. But I can clearly see today that it is her. I tried to reason with her but her outrageous claims only hightened so I told her that I tried and that now I had to go.

Naturally she is furious and believes that I'm a terrible, fair-weather friend, who never cared but of course we all know different. If anyone cared, it was me. But I smiled to myself, not because she was miserable but, because I knew I found the hole in the boat and patched it before we all sunk. I can't help it if she jumped out. She refuses to be rescued, therefore, she's not my problem anymore and I feel pretty good about it.

I'm proud that I can remove myself from people when I have to but still be emotionally available to them if they need it. I think that's where this article taught me to put that all to rest.

The reason I stand by these articles is because without awareness of what's around you, how can you make educated decisions? I would've fallen back into that cycle of "don't be mad at me" and cried about it. Why should I let someone else make me cry and ruin my summer if they don't even care about me? I shouldn't.

So the moral of this story is, if someone is playing games with you, drop the ball and forfiet. There is no shame in dropping your weapon because an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

Are your eyes open?

0 comments: