Warning: I write what is in my heart and my mind and sometimes they both say bad words.
None of us can say we aren’t judgmental. Seeing someone else’s shortcomings or seeing they are struggling, in some f’d up way, makes us feel better about ourselves.
I went way back for this journal entry. I was still living in the small community I grew up in. Everyone knew everyone and most was in everybody’s business. I was so ready to leave and make a new life where no one knew me. To live somewhere that people didn’t know your background and would just like you for you seemed like paradise!
Most of the people who lived in my little home community couldn’t understand why I wanted to live anywhere else and I couldn’t understand why they didn’t.
This was my journal entry:
YOU DON’T KNOW ME
You don’t know me. You don’t know how I feel, react, live or just get by.
You don’t know my plans, my fears or my desires.
You may see me daily, work with me, have grown up with me or held me when I was a baby but you don’t really know me.
You (the gossip mongers) say I quit going to church therefore I must have distanced myself from God……you don’t know me.
They say I don’t show emotion or react in public like everyone thinks I should…..you don’t know me.
Many even say I don’t conduct business the way they would have done it…..you don’t know me.
Remember that the next time I walk into a store, bank, post office and you have some snide remark to say about me when I leave. I assure you that you have no idea what you are talking about because you don’t know me!
But I do understand your judgment because it is so much easier to judge and talk about others when you don’t want to face the crap going on in your own life. It is so much easier to revel in the fact that a neighbor or community member is going through a divorce, financial difficulties, dependency, etc. than to face your own struggles.
That’s right, sit up there on your golden throne and “poo poo” the ones who have hardships. Make sure that when you get out of church and go to lunch at the local diner you judge the ones already sitting in the restaurant because they didn’t go to church that Sunday morning. Make sure you give yourself a pat on the back because those people aren’t as disgustingly pious as you.
Truth is we all wear masks. We all hide what we don’t want seen. We all react differently to different situations. We are all fighting our own inner battles.
So when y’all line up like vultures sitting on a limb just to watch people pass by and judge their struggles remember, you don’t know them. And when you are spreading gossip like peanut butter on toast never forget that shit flows both ways!
Stay strong my friends!