The fork on the road that you didn't choose...

Periodically, I am reminded by people that knew me back "when" that I used to be really sweet.  They still think of me as "really sweet".  Just a really nice, big pushover, over accommodating, try to make everyone else happy, all around sweetheart.  Now, that's not to say I didn't have my opinions and would vocalize them once in a while.  But I just was always trying to make everyone else happy, even if it meant at my own expense.  I like to say that I think of myself as equal to a man because of my grandfather.  That much has always been true, but I was also raised to be a true, what some might refer to as "old fashioned" lady.  I was just as much a making of my grandmother as I was his.  I imagine I might have stayed that way if I would've made different decisions in my life.  But sometimes those decisions aren't even really yours to make.  You come to a fork in a road.  You have a left fork or a right fork or you can go off roading, assuming you have a vehicle that allows you to.  Let's say you don't.  So left or right?  Well, that's your choice.  You can go backwards, but in the grand scheme of life, we know that's not truly possible.  So left or right?  Sure you choose one, but the fact you came to that fork?  You may or may not have had any real control getting to that particular fork in the first place.  At some point, all these lefts and rights turned me into an asshole.  I'm just not that sweet anymore.  Now don't get me wrong.  I'm not dishing it out to random people that don't ask for it, so I'm not a T total asshole.  But that sweet little pushover that took a lot of shit from people over the years?  No.  Not anymore.  I've pretty much become an asshole if someone pisses me off.

How did I come to this conclusion?  Well, this is going to seem a bit trivial, but it was a simple little thing that got me to thinking about it.  If my bill was wrong before, even probably in the last 3 years, I usually just paid it.  I didn't care if I was overcharged.  I was in fact so sweet that I would actually point out if I was undercharged, but never bother if I was overcharged.  Yes, I know that sounds ridiculous to some people because I know people who will make sure someone fixes their bill.  And actually pointing out when they're undercharged?  Well, in the grand scheme of things, as one of my friends put it once, "who cares".  She didn't say it as a question.  It was a statement. In fact, she was the one that pointed out I did this years ago.  I didn't change then.  I still muddled through correcting someone if I owed them, but never correcting them if they screwed me.  I don't know when exactly that changed, but I realized the other day that it has.  I made sure my bill was changed when it was wrong.  Who knew I had it in me?

Of course, it's not just that.  Twenty years ago most people were pretty shocked that I threw my ex out.  I mean really.  My best friend was proud of me for not taking his crap, but the funny thing is that I didn't throw him out for me.  I mean sure he was cheating, and I definitely deserved better.  But, I had a conversation with my then mother in law who begged me to make it "right", and in that moment, I thought of being her and having this same conversation down the road with a young woman like me that might be married to one of my sons.  My ex when we had been friends made it clear that he didn't respect his dad because of the way he cheated and treated his mother.  Yet, here I was in her relationship--we were a mirror image of his parents.  I didn't want to be on the other side of that call ever.  I wanted my boys to have a glimpse of a chance of having good marriages, and in that moment, I knew at least one of them would be guaranteed they wouldn't if I remained in that miserable existence.  I'm under no conclusion that I have made sure they will eventually have good marriages either, but I know that some young woman won't be listening to me plead with her to make my mistakes.  I really have no idea where the backbone to do that even came from frankly.  It was "strength" by some of my friends description.  But I can't tell you where it came from.  I wasn't an asshole then.

Some people wonder why I never took any of my relationships seriously since.  Was I an asshole?  Nope.  I just didn't want anyone else to suffer the consequences of my decisions.  My ex, bless his heart, used to call me on my birthday, Thanksgiving (proposal anniversary), New Year's Day (first son's birthday), Valentine's Day (used to be one of my favorite holidays--better than Christmas to me), and Saturday Memorial Day weekend (our anniversary, not the date mind you--that technically was the 23rd).  7 am.  His time.  Bahrain, Shanghai, who knows.  I was Eastern Standard time and it was annoying as hell, but my dumbass would answer the phone because he'd just keep trying if I didn't.   Looking back I should have just unplugged the phone, took it off the hook, something.  I was just too damn nice and he knew it.  Along the same lines, he sued me for 10 years, every year, for my birthday.  Yep, it's all public record.  I never counter-sued.  I let him use the court system to harass the hell out of me, until I hired an attorney who told me she was going to handle it once and for all.  I still didn't counter-sue, mind you.  Nope.  But she handled it.  The judge never even let my ex's attorney start.  He wanted to know why the idiot had served me for my birthday every year for the last 10 years, and he wasn't buying the "coincidence" answer.  Suffice to say, my attorney and the judge were the assholes to him that I needed to be.

Over the years, I've done this routine a lot.  Not just with a restaurant bill.  Not just my ex.  I would give up so to speak.  I had an abusive ex boyfriend.  Abusive enough to put me in the hospital once.  This isn't some unique story.  I know plenty of women that have been in these situations.  One shared her story with me this week.  Broke my heart to listen to what she went through.  She's strong, ornery, can be a real handful.  Rightfully so.  She's been through a lot, and I can empathize.  But when I walked away, I didn't say a word.  I didn't whine that I had been abused.   My closest friends knew, but he'd walk around like a peacock talking crap about me.  I pretended like nothing happened.  I simply moved on and hoped it would go away.  I did this with a myriad of situations.  Always the same approach.  Try to handle it the way my grandmother would.  But, this isn't the world my grandmother grew up in.  Hell, I'm pretty sure it isn't the same world I grew up in.  My grandfather raised me for the real world.  My grandmother raised me to hide behind my grandfather.  Except I didn't have a 6'5" husband to hide behind.  It took me a long time to realize I was hiding without any protection.  It sounds kind of silly, but mentally, internally that's how I processed it all.  I was trying desperately to cling to being that sweet, accommodating, fluffy, fuzzy, warm, wonderful woman my grandmother was.

In the last couple of years, I don't know.  That's changed.  I've only done a handful of mean things in my life.  I'm no saint.  But I just have never been truly mean overall.  Asshole?  Never in a million years...until now.  I mean I don't care if a man doesn't want to date me.  Big whoopie.  Most men don't like the idea of a woman making more money than they do anyway, and for the most part I make damn good money for a man, let alone a woman.  I'm good at my job.  Most men want to be more successful than their women--at least in my age category.  I may have even held myself back a little thinking I was somehow screwing myself out of an opportunity to have "happily ever after" if I got too successful.  You do realize that's just Disney bullshit they feed little girls even today??  It took me 4, yes 4 damn decades to realize that.  (My best friend has been telling me this for 2 decades.  She's laughing as she reads this I promise you.)  An aunt told me years and years ago, what seems like a lifetime ago, that God wasn't going to give me a girl because "the world wasn't ready for a girl raised by" me.  Yup.  I cried and cried and cried over that shit.  Now, I wish I would've cussed her slap happy out.  Should've taken a left turn there instead of the right.  I was a cream puff.  People would hurt my feelings and not give it a second thought.  In hindsight, a monster of my own making.  Make excuses for others bad behavior and you end up being made to look like and more importantly feel like the "bad guy" when it really is them.

Of course, this isn't just applicable to women like me.  Sure I know other women that have done this same thing, and some of them turned into assholes way before I did.  Kudos to them.  But I know plenty of guys working in my field that are big pushovers and have gotten the short end of the stick because they're too nice too.  I had a friend who was so nice to his ex, a cheating whore, that eventually even his kids were treating him like crap like she did.  He didn't get a backbone until one of the snotty brats demanded he buy her a car after she dropped out of college.  Screw her I told him.  It's always so much easier to be the asshole for someone else when you can't do it for yourself.  I was a little surprised he did it.  It just never seemed to be in him to stand up to the whore or the demon spawn she had created.  Good thing he did.  A couple years later in a strange twist of fate, he ended up finding out that particular little hell fire wasn't even his.  He really turned into an asshole then, but who can blame him?  Some people might be born assholes, but I think most of us are made.  The selfish, obnoxious, pieces of shit that take advantage of us over and over, time and time again, and after several of them one right after the other, those sweet people that we were are gone and replaced with assholes. 

Don't confuse pieces of shit with assholes either.  Pieces of shit are those loathsome creatures that crap all over other people.  They aren't assholes.  They are in complete shock when someone finally turns into an asshole.  It simply never occurs to them that there will be a negative response eventually to treating people like shit.  If they were assholes, they would know this.  They get away with it with so many people over time they just assume that they are the better, smarter and most deserving of being able to treat others poorly.  In fact, they are always the victims.  Someone else did it to them.  They're always trying to be the "better" person.  But those of us that actually are the better person?  Nope.  We roll over and pretend like it will all work out eventually.  Karma.  God.  Fate.  Something, somewhere, somehow will eventually put these pieces of shit in their place.  Yes, because eventually they will find that person that turned asshole and that particular asshole will have had enough from some other piece or pieces of shit to turn on this one in that moment, that place, that particular event, and bam.  Point out to them they are a piece of shit, because only an asshole would have the backbone to point out that a piece of shit is a piece of shit.

So yes, I've turned into an asshole.  I'll call out a piece of shit.  A spade is a spade is a spade.  I'm still all soft and fuzzy for some people.  I hated listening to the woman I mentioned earlier.  It broke my heart to listen to her story, but it's still a big wound for her.  Life wasn't fair to her, and she's made the best of it.  I admire that in a person and that makes me remember I still am a soft, fuzzy good person, so I listened.  I suggested counseling but she's not ready for it.  So I listened some more until she was done sharing.  Sometimes, you can be an asshole and still be the fuzzy, sweet person.  It's not that the fuzzy, sweet, soft part of you is gone.  It's just you realize that some people don't deserve soft and fuzzy or sweet.  They deserve a good swift kick in the patootie, as Grams would say.  A reality check.  But if being an asshole means not letting anyone take advantage of your good nature anymore, then accept it.  It's not going to change how the pieces of shit act.  It's just going to change how much shit you are willing to put up with.  You may have come to the fork in the road, but it's not always your choice what road you got put on.  Turn left or right, but don't let anyone shit on you.