The Wheels on the Bus go.......

Ya'll know that "three sides to every story" thing I talk about from time to time?  It exists.  It's called yours, mine, and the truth. There is always a spin on someones story simply because we are incapable of being truly biased toward ourselves.  Most people on the outside take a little from each side and meld it together to get what is then known as the truth.  It takes pieces of each to make the story valid.  Most people also decide early on to either take a side or bow out gracefully and don't become involved at all.

Well sometimes you have outsiders who push their own agenda on an already bad situation.  My mom would tease kittens when we were children.  Kittens play fight and wrestle.  She'd sneak up on them and tug one of their tails to get one to bite down a little harder on the other.  In kittens the practice is cute.  In people, not so much.  If you're going through some kind of traumatic upset- divorce, breakup, death- the last thing anyone needs is someone on the outside tugging a tail so to speak.  But, people do  it anyway.  They will sneak in bits of a story they heard or were told at strategic moments just to fuel that fire.  They will answer questions about subjects they have no business divulging info for.  They play sacrificial lamb and break confidences in name of solidarity for one party all the while professing good faith to the other.  It all boils down to:  people will assert themselves into things that are not their business simply to watch the firefight.  I guess it's akin to staring at a car wreck in traffic, we can't help it, it's that base violent nature we all carry.  

                                                 You Find Out Who Your Friends Are

What do you do when it's a friend who is doing the tugging?  Plenty times in life we find out who is there for us and who is there to take from us. That moment you realize who was in your life to glean is a hard one to swallow.  At times these people are ones that have been in and out of your life for years, no one you'd expect to throw you under a bus or make your situation harder than it should be.  Yes, we all go through friendship changes.  Sometimes it's as simple as you grew apart, or went in different directions, other times it's because one was a user.  Once that person has shown their true colors and motives they are typically held at arms length or let go of altogether.  You clean out that part of your life, eliminate the bad, hold on to the good, and move on.  Then suddenly years down the road, that person pops back up wanting back in...as if nothing ever happened.  

Forgiveness has been all in the news of late.  Everything from the Duggar issues to psychopaths shooting people in broad daylight has given rise to whom and how we forgive.  There are plenty of memes about it running around the interwebs.  Look, here's one!

As far as quotes go, I agree with this one.  I am, by nature, a grudge holder so this is something I am actively working on.  Just because I forgive an action done against me does not mean that I am dumb enough to open myself up to that same mistake again.  I've gone over levels of friendship and I've already said, I don't do the "frenemy" thing.  I am not a fool.  Above all else, one thing I will not do is invite past dynamics into my current life.  That, in my humble little opinion, is the dumbest thing I could possibly do.  It has taken me years to get here, this place... this non-chaotic, stable, peaceful, loving place.  I finally have a good marriage, a stable home, and my daughter has a father figure who is concerned with being a father, not her buddy.  

Can people change?  Of course they can.  They can restructure their lives, find new partners, stop doing harmful things to themselves (i.e. substance abuse), but their character will always be the same.  If they possess psychosomatic issues, those don't go away.  If this person played an integral role in the dissolution of a relationship once, they will do it again.  Call me distrustful...no really call me that because it's true.  I can forgive, but I will not forget.  Is that a character flaw of my own?  It absolutely is and I have the heart to admit it.  It's a work in progress, but while progress is being made I will not open my doors to allow my past to sneak in and sabotage in my present.  

                                                           Costello smells a rat...........