PlazaJen: Passion Knit

I still struggle with taking on other people's "stuff". I'm a fiercely loyal, loving person, and for those closest to me, I would do anything. Except rob a liquor store. Those don't always go well, I hear. Anyway, it's hard for me to not take on their problems, like they're my own. I feel it, I have an internal struggle with being frustrated & mad, and yet when the day is done, there's not one damn thing I can do except continue being a supportive friend, and try to squash & expel the extra emotion I'm carrying around, because it's not gonna make a difference, one iota. I realize it's all part of my own issues, wanting to be so connected to my parents, anyone, that I would immerse myself until my own (then frail) boundaries were bent, blurred and sometimes non-existent.

Yesterday my bubble rolled through & intersected with two different friend's lives, people who are both in relationships that could be better. Loads better. One of them probably shouldn't even be with the other person, but that's my judgement. I just wish I could give each of them some of my strength, enough to last beyond the time they're with me. I'd give them whatever it takes to make them feel better & do what they really need to do. I even said to JWo, "I wish I could just break off a chunk of my self esteem & give it to (*)." I counseled, I hugged, I admonished, I straight-talked most of the day yesterday, between both people. And yet today is a new day, and both people are still with their partners, situations? Probably unchanged. I got an email last night from one of them, the one I believed should end it, that they'd talked again & made progress - and I just felt like I'd been kicked in the gut. In our conversations yesterday, we'd compared the relationship to someone being beaten, in a physically abusive relationship. They agreed, they were the one being beaten. And the other person refuses to change. But they've made progress? I don't believe it. Because the leopard cannot change his spots, nor the Ethiopian his skin, and that person smelled their demise coming & did a serious sales job to someone who wanted to buy it. As Yoda might say, "Helpless, I am."

And now, I'm the one who said all this bad stuff yesterday, and was brutally honest about what I saw in their relationship. I don't think it will be held against me, but it's going to make it hard for me to look either of them straight in the eye. I'm not that good of a liar, and I've got duct tape on that side of my bubble after everything we went through yesterday.

But it did make me really grateful for what I have with JWo. So much so, he was completley absolved from weed-whacking the perennials I planted last year & he thought were weeds. It's a messy bed & he thought he was cleanin' up. I figure if they're tough enough, they'll come back next year. If not, it's just plants.

I wouldn't want to share my bubble with anyone else.