I’m big on emotions whether they’re mine or yours. I believe that you should absolutely accept when a person says, “You hurt my feelings” no matter how big or small the situation may seem to you. I believe that you should apologize when necessary even if the person doesn’t accept it and [you should] not be upset if they don’t accept it. I believe that being a listening ear for a person can make all the difference for them when you LISTEN WITHOUT PLACING YOUR JUDGMENT ON THEM THAT THEY DIDN’T ASK FOR. Being someone who has always felt misunderstood, looked over, prejudged and not valued I’m sure you’ll find it hard to believe me when I say that I absolutely care about other people’s feelings especially when I’m the one who hurt them. But that’s exactly why I care because I know what it feels like for people to not care even when they know they’ve hurt me. 

Over the years I’ve experienced a good deal of things and I’ve done some things that have left me feeling stuck. That feeling is what led me to write this post because I’ve allowed so many things that I’ve owned to eat me up, but I feel that it’s finally time for me to let go of them completely now. I don’t want to keep carrying the burden of “you’re a bad person” throughout life with me when what I actually did was make an honest mistake. I feel like I have this natural charm about me that attracts broken people. I feel a need to type that again so let me. I FEEL LIKE I HAVE THIS NATURAL CHARM ABOUT ME THAT ATTRACTS BROKEN PEOPLE. In dealing with these kinds of people I’ve been disrespected and hurt more than anything. But I’ve also been lied to, lied on, learned what a friend is and is not, seen how loyalty means absolutely nothing to people and how even when I’m right it doesn’t matter when a person knows how to manipulate those around them. There are three situations that have left me feeling like a horrible person. One situation was an honest mistake that ended a friendship while the other two wouldn’t have ever happened if I wasn’t thrown under the bus. I feel like I made mistakes in all three situations, but the first was legit my fault so I want to jump into that one.

I met someone while promoting myself on Facebook and they were cool, open and I grew to feel like we were legit friends until I ruined it all. Believe it or not there is no lead up. I was supposed to start watching their children for them regularly and was finding it hard to get comfortable with that favor when I couldn’t deal with some disheveled issues. I didn’t know how to express any of this to them so I started texting my husband because, I mean, who else would I tell? Our friendship got ruined because I was supposed to be sending a text to my husband and someway, somehow ended up sending that text to their child too. Till this day I still have no clue how I made that mistake because it didn’t send in a group chat with her and my husband, I didn’t even have her number saved, but that doesn’t change the fact that the message was received. However, I didn’t hide behind my mistake. In fact, I warned them before we came face to face and when I told them they cried. It broke my heart to pieces not because I regret anything that I said, but because I couldn’t identify how the things I said in that text affected me until I agreed to be around them daily and I wasn’t woman enough let alone friend enough to tell them how I felt. They told me that, “I wish you felt comfortable enough to tell me these things instead of talking about me behind my back” and that they forgave me and hugged me – I wouldn’t have forgiven me right then and there. I also wouldn’t consider me talking to my husband as talking behind their back, but that’s just me. Soon after I removed them as my friend from socials and when they noticed they text me. They didn’t say anything nasty or disrespectful just that they noticed I unfriended them and that they didn’t plan on unfriending me. I explained to them that I wouldn’t forgive me and what was said next still sticks with me till this very day. “People make mistakes…” is what they said to me and I purposely didn’t say the whole thing because that’s the only part I remember vividly. At the time, this situation was still fresh, and I couldn’t deal with the fact that they chose to accept my apology. 

They forgave me and I couldn’t understand why. I’m so used to being the one waiting on apologies or letting people back in without an apology that I couldn’t understand why this person would forgive me. The crazy part is I would’ve done the same thing – forgave myself – if I were in their position, but I couldn’t deal with the fact that I had just hurt someone’s feelings and they didn’t treat me like I had. I couldn’t stay in their life knowing that I hurt them like that. They say that forgiveness is for you and not the other person and even though they forgave me, I never forgave myself, but it’s time that I do that now.

My mistake: Aside from sending that text to the wrong person it was that I didn’t feel comfortable expressing my true feelings to someone I considered a friend. Yeah, sure, I said I would’ve forgiven me too, as they did, but it doesn’t change that I was the one in the wrong. At the end of the day it was an honest mistake.

This second situation is short and with this one I didn’t know how to feel before I was forced to feel. I felt some kind of way about a friend because I felt like they used me. However, I wasn’t ready to talk about it and I was okay just keeping my distance from them until I could gather all my thoughts and feelings to express exactly how I felt to them. The way I felt wasn’t a problem or known until my boyfriend threw me under the bus by bringing up how I felt about that person in an argument that had absolutely nothing to do with me nor their situation. The two of them had an issue that got out of hand in my opinion because it reached social media and in response to something the person said, my boyfriend threw me in it and because we were together, of course, they believed what he said. The worst part about this was that he put out information that wasn’t even true which made everything that much worse for me. What followed made me feel like this person and I were never friends. My friend became close with an old friend of theirs which was someone I knew of and from what I saw and heard wasn’t too fond of me because of my boyfriend. I was crushed because I felt like someone I cared about was taken from me and everybody started looking at me crazy for something that I never even said. But once this issue hit socials there was no way that I was jumping in to defend myself, with multiple people at that, for the world to see. I didn’t want the unnecessary drama, yet it still found me thanks to someone else. 

A whole lot of people became part of this situation that was only between the two of them and with it being on socials and nobody backing down, it was bound to get worse unless someone stopped. It was hard to digest for a long time because I had to hear so much from people who didn’t even know me. And whenever it came down to me asking who did and said what, nobody ever knew anything, so imagine that feeling. I felt like I was on an island all alone waiting for somebody, anybody to have my back, but more so the person who put me out there to begin with. Recently, I started to feel like I had to stop owning that because I never got to properly acknowledge my own damn feelings before they were brought up for me. Again, I felt used and because I didn’t know how to say that and those feelings were thrown out there inappropriately and as some kind of get back on someone else’s behalf, EVERYTHING GOT MISCONSTRUED. I had been wanting to talk to this person since the situation occurred years ago, but anytime I felt like I should, something kept telling me “NO“…. literally. I do believe that when people care about you, they’ll feel a need to have those conversations whether the plan is to remain cool or not. And I truly believe I’ll be able to have that conversation one day to close that door for myself. I’m not sure when but deep down I feel like I’ll be able to talk to them.

Update: I wrote this post in October of 2020 it is now November of 2021 that I’m giving this update. I reached out to this person in November of 2020 and we talked for a little while after but haven’t since. Here we are a year later and I feel like I got everything I needed and wanted to get off my chest and I hope that they did too. I wish them all the best and I am glad that we finally got the chance to talk things out.

My mistake: I trusted two people and they both made me feel like I didn’t matter. One I expected to know me better while the other I expected some sort of protection not to be [basically] made an example out of.

This last situation is all over the place and it’s a situation that I don’t feel would’ve happened if someone hadn’t talked my blog post up to be something that it wasn’t. I talked about this in my post, 12:36 AM, but I didn’t talk about what led up to it. Someone went out of their way for me which they didn’t have to do. And that’s me saying that and that only, nothing shady. I don’t need anybody else twisting my words to make them what they want them to be in place of what they actually are. I asked if some people could tag along with us and the person who was treating me ended up spending their money on me and those that I asked to tag along. The problem is I didn’t then and still don’t (now) feel that has anything to do with me. I didn’t ask nor force them to pay for me or anyone else so how is that my fault? This is something that I explained and when they said “maybe I overreacted” I felt like it was over. I told them it’s something I’d never do because I wouldn’t. Not to mention I wouldn’t do it for anyone myself because if I invite you somewhere and it’s for you then that’s who I’m worried about. Whoever tags along is on their own and I don’t care if it’s your mother. I felt like they’d understand that but regardless I let that situation eat me up because they didn’t like that I spoke about it in a blog post. They don’t even read my blog mind you so that’s when I knew fishy stuff was happening, but again read my older post for that part. I don’t feel I said anything wrong as I don’t feel I am in this post. But when people don’t like the way you choose to handle things it makes everything that much worse. I don’t understand why it was okay for shade to be thrown my way, indirectly, but it was an issue for me to express myself through my blog … as I do … with anything else that I write about. I made the mistake of feeling bad about setting myself free from a situation that shouldn’t have ever belonged to me. I can’t make anyone do anything that they don’t want to and that’s what it will continue to boil down to for me.

My mistake: Letting someone make me feel guilty about something I never asked them to do. Whether they wanted to do it or not, they still did it and that has nothing to do with me.  

I’m not going to let anyone make me feel bad about speaking my truth anymore. These were situations where I made honest mistakes and regardless of how those people feel about me, I can’t keep tarnishing myself over mistakes. Whether things happened a year ago or ten years ago I have got to learn how to let up on myself. People make mistakes but there’s a huge difference in people who actually care that they’ve hurt you and acknowledge that they have versus people who don’t give a fuck and can move on as if they did nothing and/or laugh about it while you’re still hurting. And I’m one of those people that actually cares enough to acknowledge your feelings and what I did to you. I wrote this post to set myself free. I’ve owned my wrongs and even got myself to a place where I’m not feeling guilty for faults that people want to place on me. I’m someone who makes mistakes just like anyone else and that’s what they are, mistakes. Things you learn from and don’t do again. I’m apologetic, I’m forgiving, I’m human, but I’m not a horrible person.