I've always stayed on the right and proper side of things. I had a wall ten miles high and part of the function of that wall was looking at things in a very black and white manner. As a result, there was always right and wrong, and I've had a pretty solid track record in staying on the right side of things.
When you're 28, and you've never had a sip of alcohol or smoked anything, or used a drug or overused a medication, or had a one night stand or gotten in a fist fight (since middle school), it's pretty easy to look at life in a black and white manner where there is right and wrong and nothing in between.
Then, I got married, and two days later woke up to a person I didn't know. Within two weeks, my husband blatantly told me "You pretend to be someone when you're dating, and you change into yourself once you get married." For my black and white brain (even for a brain that lives in the gray), my head started spinning and probably didn't stop for a while!
In the four years that followed, on top of being married to someone I not only didn't know, but didn't like at all, I started to hate the business I had always dreamed of having, and then my dad died... Let's just say, Life happens and things changed.
Now, almost five years after saying "I Do", I am so very thankful for the many lessons my disaster of a marriage has taught me. I am thankful for the way my failed marriage changed me. I am thankful for experiencing the grey areas of life.
It is so very simple to look at someone's life and judge it from the outside. It's so easy to create an image of life that is envious to people on the outside. When I was married, I owned and ran 4 businesses, traveled often, bought a house, had a beautiful baby girl, and if you knew me as a surface level friend, you thought I was happy. If you knew me one layer deeper, you also probably thought I worked too much and micromanaged everything. The latter two items were true. I did work too much and I did micromanage everything.
What you didn't know was that I worked too much because I didn't want to be home. You didn't know that I micromanaged everything because if anything went wrong at work or home, the consequences were too great. You didn't know that I bought that big beautiful house to be able to stay a safe distance from my husband. You thought I was upset about being pregnant because it made me sick and that interfered with my life - not because I feared for the life I was bringing that precious baby girl into. You thought I traveled for work or pleasure, not because it was the only time that I was able to breathe.
Last summer, I met a girl (who has since become a beyond the surface friend) who looked at me and told me she was jealous of my life. Then, one day, she saw me with my daughter. You could have scraped her jaw off the floor when she said, "You have a kid?!" Turns out we had more in common than she thought. She had a kid too, around the same age, and was also getting divorced. Turns out though, that I was jealous of her divorce terms - they were friends. No attorneys, no crap. Just respect for the fact that they were better separate.
You can spend your life being jealous of someone's situation, but I guarantee that if you look a little deeper, everyone has something in their life that you don't want.
No ones life is perfect. And if you think it is, you're wrong. I just happen to not care enough to let anyone think I have all my ducks in a row. I never knew it was even an option to pretend about the person you are - for me, it isn't - what you see is what you get.
A few weeks ago, I learned that a group of people (that I don't know at all) have a negative opinion of me because I've been a little busy this winter. I'm not going to lie - it upset me. It didn't ruin my day, and it didn't affect my ability to sleep, but it did upset me because not one single person had ever approached me about it. Instead, they chose to talk amongst themselves and then talk about me to someone else. I responded honestly that I didn't give a f*ck what people (especially those people) thought of me. They don't know a single thing about my world or where my life has been this last year, and it's not their business. But for the record - I have a little girl, a job, and a really messy divorce that have taken up the majority of my time. And now that my divorce is over and court is wrapping up, I have a little girl, and a job, and an amazing life ahead... And no time for those kinds of people.
An opinion of someone you don't know that well is made up of the little information you know, with no consideration for all the things you don't know. It's not their fault you don't know that information either, because quite frankly, it's not your business. It is, however, your fault for being so close-minded and judgmental.
Years ago, I would have felt the need to clarify. I would have marched up to those people and set the record straight. Now, I know that people who judge you don't actually care about the truth. If they did, they would have sought it out.
Learning how to navigate safely through my marriage taught me patience. It also taught me that the best you can do is to just be yourself.
This is a fact in relationships, and in life. It is not just for married people in bad relationships, or married people in good relationships. This is important information in middle school, high school, any age... And learning it starts early.
There is no amount of altering your true self, that will make others happy. The people who are taking their time to dissect your actions, are ALWAYS going to have a problem with you. If they tell you to move three inches to the left, and you do, they are going to tell you that you went the wrong way, too far or not far enough. If they tell you to smile, they are going to say smaller, or bigger. Their picture of what you should be is always going to change and what will happen is, one day, you will wake up, and not only with THEY hate you... You will hate you. And then, they have won.
I am extremely thankful for that reminder so early in life. I am thankful for the way my parents raised me to know the truth, even though it took 4 years in a bad situation to be reminded of that truth, and I am even more thankful to every single person who has loved me through the entire process.
And to all the other people who have an opinion on a situation they don't know anything about... The people who have a black and white image of what is going on in my world.... I couldn't care less, because my 'failed marriage' wasn't my failure at all. I have a beautiful daughter and a beautiful life... And I am loving the grey.