This is way more true than it should be. |
There are all kinds of betrayals. Little ones where you get thrown under the bus in a meeting. Big ones where you come home to another woman fucking your husband in your bed. A friend you have been defending for months, telling you, to your face, she thinks you're a bad friend. All kinds of betrayals. Some are work related. Some are friend related. Some are family related.
They all hurt in their own way. Even the most minor of them.
Recently, I had to somewhat forcibly remove someone from my life. I hate the Friend Zone. He was also an old coworker. After I started getting upset (well, getting upset enough to talk to my friends about it), I found out everyone thought he was hitting on me on all the time. Even people who didn't know either of us thought we were dating. His actions became so uncomfortable I was left with no choice but to create space by removing his chances to interact with me. If you look closely, you'll see I was letting bits and pieces of this growing frustration out for months.
It wasn't easy for me to create this space. I don't like hurting people and I'm not good at holding my ground. But none the less I had to get out.
Working on making this my new mantra. |
As hard as it was to create the space I needed, as many meetings where you get thrown under the bus, and as much as any of these smaller betrayals add up to create uncomfortable (or horrible) situations, they are nothing compared to what you can do to yourself.
For last year or so, I have found (or it has been brought to my attention) I am not doing a good job of taking care of myself. It started last November when TWS, The DLS, and I were running a half in Savannah, GA. We decided to make a long weekend of it and we were there Thursday through Tuesday. We spent pretty much every waking moment together, which was enough time for them to really see how little I was eating. I was calling it portion control; I was almost down to a "healthy" BMI. (Please don't get me started on how much I hate BMI.) They called it borderline anorexia. And they freaked. the. fuck. out. Rightly so, I was running 5-15 miles a week on about 700 calories a day.
At the height of this borderline anorexia, I was still 5 lbs "too heavy" to be in the healthy range for BMI. Subsequent conversations with my personal trainer about what would be healthy weight for someone with my workout regimen indicated I was probably 15 lbs under weight. I still struggle with this at times. When I get super stressed out or really insecure I have to fight with myself to not skip meals.
via Pinterest |
This July at The DLS's house warming party, part of what I realized was I was still letting The Ex take advantage of me in major ways. We have been broken up for almost 3 years. I was still on the title of his house. I still had reminders in my calendar to remind him to pay the property taxes on said house. This was because if he forgot pay (something not completely unlikely) then it could/would affect my credit, because I was still on the title.
I realized I had sent him the latest set of paperwork to get my name off the title in December of last year. So, 8 months later he still hadn't filed it. Why? I don't know. I don't understand how he could benefit from my still owning part of his house. The only thing I came up with was this: it kept me talking to him and was a tie I couldn't ignore. A way of keeping a strangle-hold on me? Maybe. So the next week after the party I hired a lawyer in CA to get me off the title and as of mid-September, I am no longer on the title of his house.
via No Homers Club |
Then there was the "friend" I was talking about at the beginning of this blog. Where I totally missed what he was trying to do and let him have far more control over me than I should have. These are all things I did to myself.
And that is The Ultimate Betrayal, not remaining true to yourself and your beliefs; betraying yourself.