How do you want to spend your life?

So I've been saying for weeks I had thoughts about relationships I needed to get out...without going into the depths of my relationship issues, one theme has been recurring in my relationships lately. Life is too damn short.

Life is too short to put energy into relationships that are unproductive or do not add value to my life.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way; it took me a while to get to this realization. I spent part of my twenties, and the time prior to having children on relationships that were just no good. Men that treated me poorly, devalued my worth. Female friends who were catty, jealous, or just not good friends. Work relationships that didn't help build my career. People that I put a lot into and didn't really get equal amount from.

4 years ago I had the closest brush with death that I've had since I became a parent. The next day my aunt passed. A year later it seems like people my age died en masse---3 people I knew--the sister of a friend, the son in law/husband of friends, and a friend from college all died within 3 months of each other. None of them over 35. I was pregnant with my youngest daughter and I remember saying to my mother; it seems like a wake up call to people my age. I decided then that I was not spending one iota of time on people or things that weren't truly important to me. That didn't make my life better, and vice versa.

In the years since; when I see inauthenticity, I cut it out of my life. You want to argue with me over petty mess and foolishness? Cut. You don't live up to your charge in life, and become a drain on society and me? Done. You can't hold up your end of a deal and respect me and mine? Fin. You disrespect me and our relationship? Gone.

It sounds harsh; but I have found that as people show themselves, it becomes much easier to deal with them from a distance. The same goes for romantic relationships. My main relationship is operating at a hell of a distance right now because he is not holding up to what the expectations are for him---so he is now at arm's length. Love him; but I will love him from a distance and go on with my life. Life is simply too short.

I'm not arguing with you, I'm not snooping, I'm not begging, cajoling, staying up crying. I'm not suffering through road trips, I'm not fake kicking it, I'm not inviting you to my house, and I'm not going to yours. Life is too short. I have to do things that enrich and empower me. And if you are not in those categories, then why invest energy in you and that relationship with you, male or female?

So now that I've been enlightened; it irks me when I see people around me continuing to pour their energy, especially when it is obviously needed elsewhere on those parasitic relationships. Yes, I said parasite. Because if someone or something is sucking the life out of you with no or little return, it is parasitic in nature. I know this well; I just pulled my last parasite off in June :) Well; if you don't count the kids, but digressing...

But it does bother me when I see those I do care about allowing their joy, their lifeblood to be sucked out of them in the name of what? Saying that person is your friend? Not hurting feelings? Not being alone? Bullish. God did not design us to be alone, and we won't be. But He also did not tell us to suffer through toxic relationships to avoid being alone. Look; if I go through all the people, relationships, situations I dealt with--that I allowed myself to participate in---that chopped years of my life, man, I really can't tell it all and I really might die at 55 as a result. But what I can say is; that I am an active participant in my life, and that the person that matters most in my life behind God is me.

So if that means I have to cut away dead weight so that I can float; then so be it. Life is too short. And I do not and will not feel a lick of guilt about it.

Toodles!

ReaLM