In life, I believe we should never get to a point where we feel as if we have “arrived.” In each of us, I think we should have the desire to consistently be better versions of ourselves than we were the day before. We should never feel as though we know it all, have learned it all, have seen it all. There is always room for improvement and we should be receptive to the people in our lives who care for us enough to call us out when we are not showing the version of ourselves they know we truly are.
I have spoken repeatedly about how blessed I am to have the core group of friends that I have. If I don’t wake up in the morning, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my life was full of people I loved and who loved me. Working in senior living, I see so many elderly residents with few visitors and few calls from loved ones checking up on them and I realize not everyone in life has it like that. I am especially blessed because my group of people aren’t scared to call me out on my bullshit. If I’m not living up to who they know I am, they say something. And that makes me extra blessed.
A prime example that I have carried with me for the last 10 years, was when my BFF completely called me to the carpet. I remember the day, where I was sitting, how I was facing…I remember all of it. I was in a terrible mood that morning. At the time, she and I were working together, she simply came to my desk to tell me something and I just snapped on her. The context of the conversation wasn’t important. What was important was the fact that ol’ girl could go from holy to hood in 3.5 seconds, but she didn’t. She just calmly walked back to her desk. A few minutes later I received an email from her. I don’t recall everything verbatim that was said, of course…but she told me that she’s sorry I was having a bad day. She went on to tell me that my bad day wasn’t anyone’s fault, especially hers and I had no right to talk to her that way. This was one of those aha moments you are sometimes slapped with and forced to own up to your bullshit. PS. I’m sure the word bitch was used by her in the email, too. But sometimes we need that brutal honesty. I tell you what though…I have thought about that conversation almost daily for the last 10 years of my life. And I appreciate it as much today as I did 10 years ago!!
I have been the same for her though. I don’t recall the exact circumstance, but there was a time she wasn’t being a good friend to one of her friends. It was a hard conversation to have because one of her many positive traits was her friendship with people. She doesn’t call everyone a friend, but when she does, that’s something that she takes so seriously and she is the definition of “ride or die.” I know this about her. I had lived this with her for years at this point. I had to call her out and remind her who she was!! I just told her that I didn’t recognize her in this narrative. And reminded her that she was better than that. I’m not sure if that conversation left a lasting impact on her or not, but sometimes someone invested in you, saying something from a loving place can mean everything.
So today, I was blessed with another aha moment. This time, it came from someone who has absolutely zero investment in me, but was said in such a way that I can’t stop thinking to myself “how did I not see this?” Let me explain.
I have Facebook and have always had a love hate with it. This means I can go from posting easily 25 memes a day to not even logging in for a year. To be honest, I’m fine with both. Lately I have been the meme queen. Since everything with me is very black and white, my two speeds are funny memes or dramatic love memes. I post funny stuff about kids, even though I have none. I also post funny memes about relationships and divorce, even though I’ve never been married. I post things I find funny…and yes, maybe also slightly inappropriate. I am who I am. I rarely post anything personal about my life. The only personal thing I post is pictures. Most of the people I’m friends with, I know in real life. They know me enough to not take anything seriously. It’s all fun and games, and people message me frequently to tell me that my memes brighten their day. I do not have Facebook to use as a dating website. In fact, it’s irritating when I’m just trying to relax with some humor and someone sends me a DM talking about “what that mouth do?” Uhhh…it will cuss you smooth out, is what it will do. That’s not why I’m there. I tend to notice people who pay me absolutely zero attention. Just take your dose of humor, click the laughter emoji, and roll out. Do not try to have a conversation with me…it’s not why I’m there.
Several weeks back this guy started interacting with my posts. He just gave me a subtle like on a couple of pictures. No comments talking about how beautiful I am, blah blah. I don’t mean to sound arrogant with that, because, at 42 a sincere compliment on my looks is something to be thankful for. And I am. But I don’t look like that all the time, and if all that interests you are my looks, then you’re going to be highly disappointed one day when you roll over to a treasure troll in the morning. Most of the time when a guy starts hitting on my pictures, I start getting the dreaded messages and the random dick pics (free game fellas: we hate that) in my inbox. I noticed him because he did NONE of that. I went to his page and noticed he did something with construction. His pictures of before and after were absolutely beautiful. So I liked a couple. What little I understand about the algorithms are that the more you interact with someone , the more they show you. His posts started showing on my feed and I would assume mine started showing on his. A couple likes on posts here and there, I figured he would be in my inbox shortly. But he wasn’t. I looked at his pictures for a few days and didn’t see any evidence that he was married. I talked to my best friend about it. She told me to just shoot my shot. I still sat on it for a few days thinking he would reach out eventually. When he didn’t, I did.
I was so incredibly nervous once I hit send, but work was so busy I didn’t have long to think about it. This is the first time in my life that I have initiated a conversation with someone on social media, mind you. Oh God! Had I just become like the creepy dude in the DM’s? 😬 So fast forward, and we have been messaging for a couple weeks. Nothing major. He’s funny as hell, works hard (which is the ultimate attraction for me); turns out he owns his own remodeling business. He is so incredibly handsome and seems to have his priorities in line. We go back and forth between real life and flirtation. Whenever I’ve had my fill of the flirting, I have to remind him that there is so much more to me than that. Because there is. This has happened a couple times and the last time, he stopped replying. This morning he sent me a message and let me know more or less that he was busy but wanted an opportunity to respond to my last message. And boy, did he ever…
This is just to paraphrase the conversation, but he started out by telling me that he thinks I’m sexy and is attracted to me physically. But basically the only 2 things he knows about me is my physical appearance and everything I post on Facebook. And my posts on Facebook look like I’m a bitter woman. He never called me bitter, but reading between the lines he was thinking it. Those two things and me lumping him in with whatever man did me dirty didn’t set well with him. The message he sent was super long and took some time to type. The 2 times he went silent, I told him that if he knew me in person then he would understand that I just joke. I said that partly hoping we could meet for dinner or something, but he never attempted. He put me in my place today so elegantly and respectfully. I listened and apologized. He was absolutely right. I explained that Facebook is not my real life and that I don’t use it as a dating website or a way to recruit a bunch of men. But all he knows is how I look and what I post. I was in a rush to see him in person and see if we clicked in some way since I know that Facebook isn’t real life. Not even necessarily like romantic, but just a guy to hang out with and catch dinner here and there. I figured it would be worth an investment of an hour of my time for dinner on the front end. I’m just assuming this, but I’m thinking he wanted to text and find out where my mind was at on the front end before he wasted an hour of his time on dinner. He’s a good man because he had zero investment in me but was so respectful in his delivery. I thanked him for taking the time to teach me something about myself. And the fact that he could have just called me bitter and kept it rolling, tells me about his respectful character.
I was sincerely thankful today. I don’t know if we will continue to talk. Who knows? But I can tell you that this is one of the lessons I will carry with me forever. Always be open to learning new things about yourself and trying to improve-you never know who God will send to teach you something. It might even be a stranger on Facebook ❤️
Single Sarcastic Superhero 