- Not The Only One!
- Post #162
- 15 Nov 24
- ” Set The Record Straight”
- Howdy!,
- I’m here today under duress. I like to think of myself as a logical and practical somewhat of a person. I recently had a birthday and it’s when a lot of people chirp in with a birthday wish. I may be the only person like this, but I have people whom at one time or the other, we were close or shared some commonality together, be it a job, school, friendship , from a church, or an old military buddy. I’m a dude and we usually trim the tree on friends as we get older, so we have some deep, close meaningful ones and the others become birthday and holiday shout outs☺️☺️. I’m not proud of that, it just seems to be the way that it works. I’m actually quite amazed and fascinated by how women have the ability to juggle tons of people and keep up with all that they have going on in their lives. Maybe, just maybe that’s why God blessed them with so many more words than us guys☺️☺️.
- I wouldn’t call myself a chameleon, but I know and come in contact with a wide range of individuals. I don’t change who I am , depending on who I’m talking to, because I think that is being fake, if I have to be someone else to be accepted by you, then we probably just aren’t going to play nice☺️☺️. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to be more diplomatic and hear people out, instead of just automatically thinking that I have all of the answers, or that I’m right and they are wrong ☺️☺️. I really, really try to understand other people’s positions, their thinking, and how they get from point A to the next stop, wherever that may be. It’s a shame that there are probably times that I’m just a little to comfortable in my own skin. I don’t scare easy and I believe that I have a base built upon an unshakable solid rock😉. I can be and am a very private person, despite what you may read here about me. The people who know me best are probably the people whom I’ve been naked with, because if we can share that, then they just get the royal tour of all that I am, and yes at times that can be a little bit on the scary side.☺️☺️. I can think of one or maybe two exceptions to that rule, but that’s it. I have the ability to be open and suspicious simultaneously, it’s a true rare gift☺️☺️. The bottom line is that I’m a complex mess and just so, so, so qualified to be unqualified to write a single word to you guys. I did mention how comfortable I can get and so I will continue on. ☺️☺️.
- Because of some of the jobs that I have held , a somewhat lively dating profile and this format right here that we meet on, I know people all over the country and a few international friends as well. So a little bit of a wide net. The thing that got me here today is a friend, a dear friend and we have shared some moments together and you may be surprised that they weren’t in a romantic setting, but this person is a high profile wheeler and dealer in the property market. They called me to wish me happy birthday, which was very nice, but somehow it turned into a mine field that I didn’t even know that I had wondered into. ☺️☺️Well to be fair, they hit the sauce a little bit in the evenings to help them * wine down from a busy day, so there may be an apology coming my way.☺️ I don’t know what has some people so crazy about this last election. I’m tired of it. It has just sucked so much oxygen out of the room that it’s ridiculous. And no! I’m not going to talk about politics, I’m just over it and honestly I’m exhausted! If not politics, then what? Well how about the collection of people who chimed in for my birthday today. Yeah!, it’s a wide cross section as I said , I have a list of people who are birthdays and holidays only , so for that to be true, I must be on someone’s else’s list for that as well ☺️☺️.
- It might just be more entertaining to talk about the people whom I didn’t hear from like the ex, or the boss that I gave notice to, but he didn’t believe I was leaving, and then came in at the last minute to beg me to stay ☺️☺️. Yeah!, those are the conversations we really want to have, but let’s just stick to the plan, it’s just safer that way☺️☺️. I have four siblings and they all checked in at one time or the other. One of my two sister in laws, to be fair one is local and I just have a lot more personal contact with her. Yeah! My mom, lassoed me into having breakfast with her senior group. Let’s just call that an experience, there is just nothing better, than hanging out with your mom’s friends that you don’t know. I’m not really in a position to make jokes about the smell of Ben Gay,☺️ so when I say that it was a tremendous amount of fun, you should just feel the sarcasm dripping from the page☺️☺️. And again at breakfast….politics, I just seem to be unable to escape it, regardless of where I turn.
- Here’s one for you. When we talk about things that we want to eliminate from our lives to reduce our stress level, mine has got to be group chats. I hate them, I hate them and I hate them with green eggs and ham☺️☺️. I have way to many of them and they have become a necessary evil in my life. Last count was nine of them. Talking about asking myself how I got some place I didn’t want to be☺️☺️. We aren’t diving into my chat history ☺️☺️. So one of my group chats is my men’s support group, it’s a little bit of a covert Bible study, ☺️☺️but they are my guys and I love them, each and everyone of them, and another place that politics can get a little bit out of hand, and surprisingly, maybe not so much, but from both sides of the isle. ☺️☺️. So yes the guys chimed in and some of these men are closer to me than my own biological brothers and would stand up for me under any circumstance. They are the guys who have my back and I have their ‘s.
- It wouldn’t be a birthday if I didn’t hear from my kids, well not a proper one anyway.☺️ I have a daughter who lives in the pan handle of Florida and a son who is a little bit more local and he’s taking me out to do some guy stuff for my birthday. I also have an adopted daughter up in the land of Lincoln and she is very near and dear to my heart and she has a little * Tike named Harrison who’s almost a year old and is completely adorable. I find it cute that my daughter is jealous of the adopted daughter, newest and cutest of the grandsons. Girls are funny like that , and I wouldn’t trade it for anything ☺️☺️. There is also extended family as in aunts and I’m down to my last uncle and we are just four years apart. This is another heat under the collar place when it gets to talking about Washington D.C.
- There were others, many others and I was kind of being rude this morning at breakfast, because my phone just kept going off. I probably should have just silenced my phone, but then I would have just gotten backed up and probably fail to respond to someone’s text. As I said there were others, but I’m only going to mention just one more. I make it sound as if I’m really a popular guy, but not so much !, remember rule number one, I’m private and I really don’t let that many people in close. Of course some of these relationships, you can see just how inappropriate it would be for us to find ourselves some place naked together ☺️☺️.
- I did hear from a friend today and we spent a little bit of time texting back and forth and it’s kind of ironic that I’m bring them up among all of this political upheaval. It’s my little buddy from Canada. An absolutely wild introvert ☺️☺️. I know that it doesn’t sound like those things would go together, but a very unique style. I think that it’s fair to describe her as gorgeous. Intelligent than all get out. Smart as a whip and one of the most dark and sarcastic person’s that I’ve ever run across. I could go on with her accolades but what’s the point? I think that you get that she is special and was someone who was special to me. We had some great times together and on some levels she was just so committed, but never trusting herself or anyone else. Yeah!, that’s right she had trauma in her past, just like most of us. She was broken, ok maybe a little damaged and I really hate the implications that word carries. She had been hurt more times than all of the fingers on both hands☺️☺️. I don’t even know how we got to some of the places we got to because we were like two Porcupines☺️☺️. Fire and ice, oil and water, you name an opposite attraction and that was us.☺️☺️. It’s not an exaggeration, but it was so much more than just being polar opposites. We connected really well and I saw so much hope and promise, and I do believe that we gave it an honest effort, but I don’t know that it was our all.
- That may sound strange that if we wanted it to work, then why didn’t we give it our all? Actually that’s really simple, we were both afraid of being hurt. I used the adjectives of broken and damaged and those applied to me maybe more so than her. You try to tear down defenses and actually make things more fortified than ever. It’s just so hard for us to crawl out of those shells. It truly is like a dog who has been abused and every time you raise your hand, we just don’t know if it’s a scratch behind the ears or the other thing that just makes us flinch and sometimes when we aren’t even being threatened. 🥲🥲. There was an opportunity when she was probably truly open and trying to let me in, but I didn’t see it for what it was , and by the time that I did recognize it and see her and see her for all of the pain that she was carrying around and trying desperately to hide, that clam was closed . ☺️ See the problem with trying again is that it sounds like something that you have heard so many times before and never ever coming close to hitting pay dirt. It’s just to hard to try and trust it, because it means that I have to climb over countless years and relationships of failure. We had so much in common and she was just always trying to be that good moral person.
- Oh!, was that a slip of the tongue??, No it wasn’t! ☺️ We both had our pass working against us, and sometimes we looked something very much like a Mexican standoff. She always thought that our problem was that we both ended up on the opposite end of the political spectrum, but actually it was something so much more severe, and dire and that was that we were on the opposite ends of the God thing. She would say Christian but other than her words , everything else said absolutely not and not by a long shot.☺️☺️. I’m not judging her, it’s her own words and she really made that loud and clear this past election cycle 🙄. It was always there and I knew it. I didn’t ignore the red flags because it was an affront to my King. If you think and believe that your walk with God is something that you put on and take off at will, then there is a serious distortion with that picture. ☺️ Still this is someone that I cared about and loved and honestly tried to meet in the middle. It just doesn’t work. I have a very sad and shameful confession to make here. She asked me if I could love her for who she was? I said yes, and sadly that was just a lie. I tried to and I desperately wanted to, but spiritually we were on two different planets, and no where close in that department. I’m not proud of that, but if you care and love someone, why wouldn’t you want the best for them. Our kids! , sometimes we want more for them than they want for themselves and I probably did damage and went about it the wrong way to try and get her into a love relationship with Jesus. She had religion and a lot of it and almost every religion that you could name, she had tried it and to no avail, and to those of us who know Christ that is no surprise, because it’s not a religion but a relationship. I know that I’m not responsible for the results, but I still some how feel as if I fumbled the ball 🥲🥲. At the end of our texting, it wasn’t said , but I felt as if we were both just thinking to let sleeping dogs continue to sleep ☺️☺️
- Setting the record straight is about me admitting that the things that I don’t like and the flaws that I see in other people are the same things that I see and don’t like about myself. I don’t give people the finger in traffic, but I think unkind things about them. By all accounts I’m just a sinner saved by grace, so forgiven, but not better than anyone else and definitely not in a position to past judgment on anyone else and their dysfunction. I have my own dysfunctions to answer to☺️. Remember that when you are coming down on some political candidate and all of their dysfunctional history, that you have yours as well and I believe that it goes , the person without sin to cast the first stone. I have just been literally overwhelmed with the politics crap, and it is crap, my personal take on it☺️☺️. My slightly inebriated friend who just went off on me tonight, is a confessing believer, but You never would have been able to tell that by the language and passion brought forth from her mouth tonight.
- Before we part ways, I just want to address family for a quick minute. Politics may be everywhere we turn, but we have to remember that it’s not an end all. I’ve always been aware that you can’t argue someone into heaven, as much as I wish that we could, it’s an impossibility. That being said we aren’t probably going to change anyone’s mind about political positions by arguing either. Being the loudest person in the conversation, doesn’t make you right or that you somehow won, but you can be pretty sure that there is some bridge burning going on☺️☺️. As Kenny Roger’s use to say, you got to know when to fold them, and know when to walk away, and there may be a time to run as well ☺️☺️. This is more rhetorical than anything else, but why are we so excitable and angry.? We know that this is not our home. We are supposed to do our due diligence and be informed. We are supposed to do our civic duty and cast our vote to the best of our ability. After that we are called to pray and to submit to the government and it doesn’t matter if it’s the team that you voted for or not. God is in control and all government, and authorities, good , bad or ugly, all fall under his reign and Kingship, and He is not asleep at the wheel ☺️☺️.
- Honestly it makes me a little sad to see some of you guys behavior, the things that You post and say, with malice intent, and complete disregard for anyone with an opposing opinion. My two final thoughts on this one. Is that behavior honoring of Christ? Its a simple question. My other * epilog is what would the world look like if we pursued God and the things that move the heart of God with the same passion and zeal that we give to the political parties and systems? We owe it all to Him and we act as if we don’t.
- Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
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