We Know You're a Jerk...Did You Really Have to Reinforce It?

It's funny, with most people that show their assholian tendencies, you just stop hanging out with them, talking to them, associating with them, or whatever. A perk of being human is free will, and in general you can avoid people that are truly horrible.

Unless they're family. Or co-workers. However, both of those situations are usually short-term (as in, I guess I can handle the occasional get-together with totally miserable family members or sit in a meeting an hour a week or so where highly immature and rude co-workers think it's okay to make jokes about a rather structured colleague water boarding peers for stepping out of a meeting), and we all have our crosses to bear.

My ex-husband seems to enjoy being a cruel and emotionally manipulative force in my daughter's life, though. It is utterly unnecessary, and I will never understand why he (and others like him) can't just accept the terrible damage that they've done to others and walk the hell away. Reopening the wounds over and over again, for six years now, just drives home the fact of your douchebaggedness over and over...

He's playing this "I've found God" game lately, so I'd like to put this into language that goes along with that: a true and just God will make you burn in hell for eternity. No matter how many Facebook posts you make about the greatness of God and how amazing life is since you've found Him, I'm pretty sure that He hears actions louder than words, so really you should be quaking with fear if your religious claims are true. Douchebag.

My children are the most important thing in the world to me, and I'm especially protective of my middle daughter, Ari, because of the emotional torture she's had to endure (and the physical torture she's had to observe) at the hands of her biological father. Nobody needs to hear the saga beyond the fact that court paperwork is explicit that he is not allowed to be alone with her because of his "issues". That, I assume, speaks volumes.

If you aren't equipped to be a parent, if your presence is going to damage your child, nobody would blame you for walking away. In some cases, this would be the greatest gift you could give your child.

If you make the choice not to do this, however, then there is an implied expectation that you will do your best to make up for six years' worth of cruelty and mind games. 

One very small way to do this would be to answer the phone when your daughter calls (at the time you've requested, on the number you've requested) on her birthday. Seriously, picking up the phone and saying, "Happy birthday" is a very simple thing to do; it's a seemingly small gesture that nonetheless shows a degree of care, no matter how small.

Yet you couldn't be bothered.

And not because you were on a bender (which Ari understands because it's happened so many times) or were in jail/rehab/et cetera (been there, done that, many times, so she gets that as well).

Even though Ari primarily hates you due directly to your own actions six years ago and your constant emotional manipulation in the years since, there is still a part of her that hopes. Your daughter has a beautiful and giving heart, something you will never understand, and so she still wants you to answer the phone when she calls.

I am not going to tell her that you didn't answer the phone because you were too busy with your girlfriend's grandson that you somehow have custody of (you aren't allowed to see your own child unsupervised, yet you are allowed to raise a baby...what a sick world).

I would never show her this post your girlfriend made last night:

This was Ari's birthday:

She had a wonderful day, and she was surrounded by people that loved her--aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, sisters--but you taking twelve seconds to answer the phone and say happy birthday (or call back, or text, or whatever) could have been a positive addition to the day.

Instead, you chose to reinforce what a loser you are.

Why?

Can't the Golden Rule Just Guide Humanity? Seriously????

I am way too sensitive, a condition of which I am well aware.


I am flawed in a hundred different ways.  I am disorganized.  I'm cranky.  I don't do well without set, drop-dead due dates.  I am goofy when I should sometimes be serious.  My wardrobe is pretty pathetic.  My eyebrows need to be done.  My car might just be radioactive.  I swear like a sailor.


You probably get the idea.


But I am never cruel.


I have the typical human knee-jerk reaction of being pissed off when, for example: 


* Certain ex-husbands who shall remain nameless set up a special outing with the daughter they haven't seen in weeks, ask their ex-wives to spend an additional hour and a half in a car driving said daughter there, then don't show up or even answer the phone, text messages, or e-mails, forcing the ex-wife to try to explain to the sobbing daughter why exactly it's wrong to say that Daddy's a bad person.  Oh, this is particularly egregious when the ex-husband involved owes the ex-wife in question $500.  Just saying ...


* People drag me into drama that does not concern me.  I do not get involved in drama.  I hate drama.  I went on the "Oh, let's make fun of people, isn't it a good time?" trip, the "Let's pick apart every little thing that person does because my friend doesn't like her" vacation for awhile last year, and you know what?  It makes you feel like crap inside after awhile.  I'm out of that, totally out of that.  I made an active choice to remove myself from the set of Mean Girls, and getting pulled back into it when I didn't do a freaking thing is frustrating.


* When your ability to do your job effectively is called into question by fools who have no idea how to be an English teacher.  I once had someone say to me, "All that kids in your class do is read, write, and have discussions."  I was royally pissed off for about thirty seconds ... then I started laughing because, damn, they'd just paid me a hell of a compliment.  But sometimes it's hard to suck up the crap people sling around.  I have never once had my integrity as a teacher questioned by a person whose opinion meant anything to me.  It's easy, though, to say, "Consider the source" and something else again to do it.


Which brings me back to the title of the post.


Let anyone who's never committed a sin throw stones at glass houses (how's that for combining ;-)?), and I guarantee you that ... well, it'd be quiet.


Look, we all suck on some level, in some verb tense.  I used to suck, sucked, will strive to never again suck, but ...


Well, you get it, I'm sure.


Shut the heck up, get over yourself and your stupid childish  mentality, and focus on you.  Look in the mirror, think about what role you play in any of the drama you're so worked up about, and own what belongs to you.


I think you might be surprised, seriously.


If every person in the world could just stop and think about the ramifications of their own misbehavior, to presume positive intentions in others, and to keep their mouths shut if it doesn't involve saying something nice or adopting a "live and let live" policy, the world would be an infinitely better place.


Look, I know I'm living in a world of rainbows and dancing fairies and hobbits.  Just because I make a concerted effort to treat others well or at least to give them common courtesy doesn't mean that others can or will or maybe even should.


But it also drudges up the cynical crystals still floating inside of myself, and the idea of those joining together and changing me because some people are rude, inconsiderate, bullying, lying, hypocritical ... "stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerfherder" ...


Just be good to each other ... it's not that freaking hard!


**Okay, rant over ... my apologies :-)**

I Am Hated (And Strangely Excited About It)

I don't think most people go through life intentionally pissing others off (there are, of course, exceptions, but in general I have a pretty Pollyanna-esque view of my fellow human beings). However, I think we all do it to some degree, often by accident or by thoughtless actions that blow into drama-filled chaos or even just by a misconstrued statement.

I never thought I'd be in the position of ticking off another person so badly that she felt compelled to write an entire blog post blasting me.

I also can't believe that I'm laughing about it. I'm ridiculously sensitive (to a fault, to be completely honest), and a lot of times the tiniest bit of criticism has me virtually in tears.

I've toughened up a lot in the past year, in large part because of the divorce situation but also through working at Zelda Lily. There is a great core group of readers over there that leave thought-provoking comments taking what my colleagues and I write to a whole new level--but I have been ripped a new one on more than one occasion.

To wit:

The author here is pretending her values are absolutes that everyone should abide by, and seems outraged that there are other people don’t share her values, to the point of degrading and mocking them. Why aren’t these women allowed to like their lifetyles, exactly? Is Katie Loud going to go on a Middle East tour and tear off burkas too?

I cried when I read that comment. Bawled like a baby. And then I realized that the commenter had a point. I might feel that he misconstrued my point (the piece was an admittedly hard slam of an extremely religious website that operates under the "Husband is Master ... and Wife's Job is to Cook, Clean, and Raise Perfect Children" philosophy), but if the message I was sending was that I felt like everybody should agree with me all the time, then shame on me. You know?

So instead of flying off the handle and doing something stupidly impulsive (See? I'm getting better ;-)), I thought really hard about what was said, wrote a piece here on my personal blog explaining my frustration with the challenges of balancing feminism with religion, and resolved to be more aware of all sides of a story in the future.

In retrospect, I'm glad that that comment was made, as painful as it was for me at the time. It was a tremendous learning experience for me both as a writer and as a human being.

It has also made me able to laugh--and laugh hard--at the recent incident that's really at the heart of this post.

So back in late May/early June, when I was still a newbie at Zelda Lily, I wrote a piece about an ad featuring a bra by plus-size store Lane Bryant being refused by a couple of news networks that went on to feature ads by Victoria's Secret.

Well, evidently I really pissed somebody off ... She wrote a vitriol-filled rant against me personally and the company I work for. My words and intentions are taken completely out of context for the purpose of her piece, and for the first time I feel like I am actively hated by someone that doesn't know me from Adam.

You can read her piece here, if you're interested.

I was really angry at first, actually. Then I reread my piece almost obsessively, and I of course knew what I was trying to say so her interpretation seemed even crazier to me.

And then it occurred to me how sad it is that someone has that much hate stored up from a piece posted on June 1 to let me have it with both barrels.

Then, of course, I just laughed.

The thing is, it's fine to disagree with people. I learn a hell of a lot from people that disagree with me (or play devil's advocate) since it makes me think on so many dimensions.

What's not cool is the meanness. The comment about "Katie Loud tearing off burkas on a Middle East tour" bordered on mean, but I could see where the guy was coming from when I put it into a greater context. Ultimately, it helped me a hundred times more than a compliment would have.

I'm not being mean here. I even linked to her post so she can get page hits.

I'm not used to being hated ... and I'm kind of proud of myself for 1) not going to pieces over this, and 2) realizing that I am not the one with a problem here.

On a different note, I had one of the most traumatic events of my life happen to me today, and I'll be blogging about it tomorrow. I'm not proud of my actions (mostly because there were no actions on my part ... I was, like, the anti-feminist, ashamed as I am to admit that), and I'm still too shaken up to write about it yet.

But it's quite a story!