You know...
...I've had people say to me that, "You can't be all things to all people." I need to figure out a balance between what I do for myself and what I do for others. I guess I'm a typical nurse, we all take care of everybody else and ignore our own needs. Hell, I don't even think we KNOW what our own needs are, we haven't given it that much thought.
I know that I spend a lot of time helping other people but I don't know what else to do. When I see that a person needs help, it's just my natural response to do my best to help them. I wouldn't think twice...I would just do what I could do. It's so badly ingrained in me to help others that some people take advantage of me. If you help enough people, someone will take advantage of you sooner or later...it's a matter of numbers.
Depending on what the person who is screwing me is doing...or who they are...I may or may not put a quick stop to it. I keep trying to help even after it's become a stupid thing to do. That's how I ended up being married to a chug (someone who cheats like a gangster commits crimes), I just let it go and before I knew it, he would cheat again. Even if he was good for 5 years straight, 5 years goes by pretty quickly and when it comes to cheating it's even faster. The sting lasts for years so even if you DO get over it after a few years, as soon as you do it happens again. I don't know why I allowed that...I guess it's just that when you live with so many little lies, the big ones seem reasonable and Rick lied about the dumbest stuff...just to avoid a conflict. So after a few years of those daily bullshit lies...the deception of cheating came quite easy to miss.
Sometimes I do just tell people who screw me to get lost or I just avoid them all together which is what I've been doing as it pertains to men lately. I know that all of them want sex and until someone really, really earns it, I'm keeping it to myself. I don't care how horny I get, I'm not fucking anyone for a long, long time. Going out with a guy makes me feel stupid, I end up thinking about them too much, waiting to see them too much and talking on the phone too much. It would be one thing if it was worth all of that time, but no guy has been yet. So, I figure the best thing to do is just to stay at home and avoid them all together.
Like I said, my reaction to someone taking advantage of me is dependent upon who the person is. If it's family...I'm a real sucker. But some people push it to the limit and get outright rude to me in a way that I would never, under any circumstances, do to anyone else.
When someone is talking to me, I listen to what they say. I may try to get away if they talk too long but I would listen to any relatively reasonable person speak. It's rude not to, right? Well, I was just talking to my charming son who walked in a little while ago to ask me a favor (which I was happy to do). I was telling him about the genetically altered fish and he said something stupid like, "All aquarium fish are genetically altered to be so small, didn't you know that?"
Well, I just can't believe that MY son would say something so stupid. But I didn't respond, "You're such a moron! Do you really think there's a giant guppy swimming around? Where are the giant tetra?" and then laughed and laughed and laughed. But I wouldn't want to hurt someone's feelings so I just said that I used to catch guppies in a stream with a cup and that they had aquariums when I was a kid without the ability to manipulate genes. Halfway through that sentence, he shouted, "OK...OK...I don't care, just shut up!"
Every so often I act like I have a shred of self respect and I go off on the nit wit who treats me like that. Today I did. I sit here typing quietly for hours and don't say a word. When I talk to my kid I expect to be able to finish a sentence. I remember being very young and being aware that you need to listen to other people when they speak to you. No one told me that, I just knew better somehow. So why is my kid such a jerk? He wasn't raised hearing people tell him to shut up...why would he do it to someone else?
I'm so even tempered that he never, ever would expect me to go off on him. Of course, I can surprise people. And when I do it, I do it like my mother used to do it. I freak asses out.
My father was the disciplinarian in our house and we all knew mom wouldn't hit us...99.9% of the time. But when we pushed her enough, she would lose it (and with 6 kids I'm surprised she didn't lose it more often). The scary thing about her was you never knew what would set her off and you had no clue what she might do...she was totally NUTS when she went off. In a way, my father was much less frightening...you knew the rules and had a chance to avoid being punished. But with Mom, who the heck knew what was gonna happen?
It happened rarely enough that we didn't worry about it too much and when not one of 6 kids is worrying about the noise and the irritation it causes the mother...things can get a bit loud and annoying. She would flip out and you never saw it coming. After all, who was paying any attention to the sum effect of all 6 of us? I was just thinking about what I was doing, not what the other 5 were doing.
At this age, I'm not as wild as my mother was when she was in her 30's...but I can freak the kids out if they push me far enough or push just the right button. And the kid pushed the right button today. So, I got to be a huge bitch until I was sure that the kid wished he had just let me finish my sentence.
Giddy up.
...I've had people say to me that, "You can't be all things to all people." I need to figure out a balance between what I do for myself and what I do for others. I guess I'm a typical nurse, we all take care of everybody else and ignore our own needs. Hell, I don't even think we KNOW what our own needs are, we haven't given it that much thought.
I know that I spend a lot of time helping other people but I don't know what else to do. When I see that a person needs help, it's just my natural response to do my best to help them. I wouldn't think twice...I would just do what I could do. It's so badly ingrained in me to help others that some people take advantage of me. If you help enough people, someone will take advantage of you sooner or later...it's a matter of numbers.
Depending on what the person who is screwing me is doing...or who they are...I may or may not put a quick stop to it. I keep trying to help even after it's become a stupid thing to do. That's how I ended up being married to a chug (someone who cheats like a gangster commits crimes), I just let it go and before I knew it, he would cheat again. Even if he was good for 5 years straight, 5 years goes by pretty quickly and when it comes to cheating it's even faster. The sting lasts for years so even if you DO get over it after a few years, as soon as you do it happens again. I don't know why I allowed that...I guess it's just that when you live with so many little lies, the big ones seem reasonable and Rick lied about the dumbest stuff...just to avoid a conflict. So after a few years of those daily bullshit lies...the deception of cheating came quite easy to miss.
Sometimes I do just tell people who screw me to get lost or I just avoid them all together which is what I've been doing as it pertains to men lately. I know that all of them want sex and until someone really, really earns it, I'm keeping it to myself. I don't care how horny I get, I'm not fucking anyone for a long, long time. Going out with a guy makes me feel stupid, I end up thinking about them too much, waiting to see them too much and talking on the phone too much. It would be one thing if it was worth all of that time, but no guy has been yet. So, I figure the best thing to do is just to stay at home and avoid them all together.
Like I said, my reaction to someone taking advantage of me is dependent upon who the person is. If it's family...I'm a real sucker. But some people push it to the limit and get outright rude to me in a way that I would never, under any circumstances, do to anyone else.
When someone is talking to me, I listen to what they say. I may try to get away if they talk too long but I would listen to any relatively reasonable person speak. It's rude not to, right? Well, I was just talking to my charming son who walked in a little while ago to ask me a favor (which I was happy to do). I was telling him about the genetically altered fish and he said something stupid like, "All aquarium fish are genetically altered to be so small, didn't you know that?"
Well, I just can't believe that MY son would say something so stupid. But I didn't respond, "You're such a moron! Do you really think there's a giant guppy swimming around? Where are the giant tetra?" and then laughed and laughed and laughed. But I wouldn't want to hurt someone's feelings so I just said that I used to catch guppies in a stream with a cup and that they had aquariums when I was a kid without the ability to manipulate genes. Halfway through that sentence, he shouted, "OK...OK...I don't care, just shut up!"
Every so often I act like I have a shred of self respect and I go off on the nit wit who treats me like that. Today I did. I sit here typing quietly for hours and don't say a word. When I talk to my kid I expect to be able to finish a sentence. I remember being very young and being aware that you need to listen to other people when they speak to you. No one told me that, I just knew better somehow. So why is my kid such a jerk? He wasn't raised hearing people tell him to shut up...why would he do it to someone else?
I'm so even tempered that he never, ever would expect me to go off on him. Of course, I can surprise people. And when I do it, I do it like my mother used to do it. I freak asses out.
My father was the disciplinarian in our house and we all knew mom wouldn't hit us...99.9% of the time. But when we pushed her enough, she would lose it (and with 6 kids I'm surprised she didn't lose it more often). The scary thing about her was you never knew what would set her off and you had no clue what she might do...she was totally NUTS when she went off. In a way, my father was much less frightening...you knew the rules and had a chance to avoid being punished. But with Mom, who the heck knew what was gonna happen?
It happened rarely enough that we didn't worry about it too much and when not one of 6 kids is worrying about the noise and the irritation it causes the mother...things can get a bit loud and annoying. She would flip out and you never saw it coming. After all, who was paying any attention to the sum effect of all 6 of us? I was just thinking about what I was doing, not what the other 5 were doing.
At this age, I'm not as wild as my mother was when she was in her 30's...but I can freak the kids out if they push me far enough or push just the right button. And the kid pushed the right button today. So, I got to be a huge bitch until I was sure that the kid wished he had just let me finish my sentence.
Giddy up.
posted by Meg Kelso | 5:58 AM
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