I'll make the most of it, I'm an extrordinary machine....

Holding a grudge can sound so yummy sometimes, can't it?  Boy, when someone does us wrong, especially really wrong, it's so easy to dig our heels in and sit in our big pile of righteous indignation, determined to be angry and most of all make them pay.  We take it on as our job to debt collect from them and maybe, just maybe (but probably not), someday we might let them off the hook and forgive them.

Actually, I can't imagine living that way.  It is so toxic to be so bitter and I'm just not built that way.  I mean, I can't say that I don't hold a grudge toward anyone... the devil gets out of prison in one year (omg) and I hold plenty of grudges toward him.  I don't even know if it can be considered a grudge because it's so big.  And I definitely hold one toward the wasband because of the way he took such advantage of me.

Other than that though, I'm kind of like teflon... the stuff just doesn't stick.  If someone does me wrong, I may not ever have the same kind of relationship with them, because boundaries change and new rules are established but my gosh, I would rather have peace than debt collect off of that person for the rest of my life!

I think I'm just hard-wired to have rose colored glasses and to give the benefit of the doubt.  I always seem to default to the train of thought that you never ever know what someone was going through at that moment in their life that they chose to trespass on the good nature of your life.  Also, you never know what works God is going to do in that person's life.  How do you know that the way you react to what they did isn't going to affect them in a way that is so big that it will be life-changing for them?  And then it's a ripple effect... they start doing good things and it touches someone else and then someone else and then someone else.

What they do is their karma, how you react to it is yours.

Over this last week where I've had trouble in my dating life and had a few major shake-ups (what else is new at chez v?), I have been reminded of this because of the number of people who have actually given me grief about trying to be peaceful with Paul.  He's not a monster.  He's Paul.  He's a man who did a shitty, shitty thing.  He hurt people emotionally and he changed relationships forever.  But should I walk around with a demon on my back determined to hate him and hold a grudge?  Frankly, that's a rhetorical question, because I don't care what you think (shorry boo).  I refuse to stop in my tracks.  I refuse to get stuck in a critical, judgmental, hateful place of being.  That's not who I am.  That's not who God is.  And I believe God.

And with all this being said, I have to say that I also believe God when he says that where mercy is shown, mercy is given.  Let me tell you, I have screwed up so many times.  Sometimes little and sometimes big.  I had to think about it for a minute, but I'm pretty sure I can honestly say that I've never screwed up with malice.  I mean, I never did anything to be mean or to purposely hurt anyone else.  I know that sometimes it did anyways, but... well, just but.  To those I have hurt, I say I'm sorry.  My heart to yours, I am very, very sorry.  I'm banking on what God says and that maybe I will be shown a little bit of mercy along the way.

Even to my favorite stalker...I always wonder whether you're curiously amused by me, or full of viciousness.  My little stalker visits me all the time.  She comes to my site from everywhere that my name is mentioned.  I sometimes think she does nothing to earn those high-paid Department of Justice bucks but to sit and Google my name.  It's okay though, it is what it is.  Some call it stalking, she calls it keeping in touch.  I have to say though, that this morning my phone rang with a Cleveland number and I let it go to voice mail because I thought it might have been my stalker calling to tell me I needed milk.

“The quality of mercy is not strained; 

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed- 

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”

~William Shakespeare

"Extrordinary Machine"
by
Fiona Apple

xoxo veronica