jane_and.the_dragon

     Have you ever noticed how many people may seek do upset you or make you feel bad about yourself, but just one word from someone you can really trust will wash away a hundred words from someone who wants to hurt you?   I have a few friends like this and when I need to know the truth I go to one of them.   It does not matter what anyone else say to me or about me I know these friends will always tell me the truth, whether I want to hear it or not lol.   Everyone should build the foundation of their personality upon people they can really trust.   If you build on people who's words you can trust, you will always be confident in who you are and what you do. 

     The beauty of real friendships is they will last through many changes and mood swings lol.   Someone once gave me a magnet that said a friend is someone that knows all about you and loves you just the same.   lol the ironic part of this is the person that gave that to me I rarely see anymore, and at one time we were close as sisters, but the sentiment is still a nice one.   It recently came to my attention that some of my friends think my personality is changing, so I went to someone that has know me longer then anyone on the net that I am still in contact with.   I asked him if he thought I was changing.   He said not that he had noticed.   Trust me he was not just saying that to protect my feelings.   He has no problem what so ever in telling me if he thinks I am wrong in anyway.  Last time I asked him if I was changing was over two years ago and at that time he agreed I was ,but he added that it was for the better. lol As hard as it may be for some of you to believe I used to be even more out there then I am now.

     One thing I do know for sure though, if you have a real friend one that is not afraid to tell you the truth, or tell you if you are out of line for fear of losing your friendship, hold on to them.    They are worth their weight in gold, and they are harder to find then a red diamond and 100 times more valuable.  I have been very lucky I have found a few such friend in my life and most are still in my live.   One such friendship has lasted 50 years this past September.  

     With Thanksgiving only 4 days away now I would like to take a minute to give thanks for my true friends, and the fact my nephew is back out of the hospital.   I would also like to thank everyone who preyed for his surgery and I hope you will continue to do so for his full recovery.

     I think manipulation is something you learn when you are young.   You try something and if it works you make it part of your personality for all times.   I will give you and example.   When my niece was little she used to play with my neighbors granddaughters.   The were lovely well behaved little girls and I loved having them all around.  On the days I babysat my niece I would feed her supper.   Most nights I would just make enough for the two of us as I am on a fixed income and can not afford to waist food.   My niece started asking if her little friends could eat with us.   This would not have been a problem HAD SHE LET ME KNOW EARLIER that she wanted them to stay so I could make more.   She would wait till I told her to get ready to eat before she would ask RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE LITTLE GIRLS.   So if I were to say no it would make me look like the meanie.   More then once I had to try to stretch supper for 2 into supper for 4 at the last minute.  

     I took my niece aside and said to her : I hate when you ask in front of them because sometimes I did not make enough for 4, and if I say no then I look bad to you all, but it could just be I did not have enough made for 4.  I told her, from now on if you want them to stay DO NOT ASK ME IN FRONT OF THEM!  Take me off to the side and ask me and if I have enough made they can stay, but if I tell you no you do not even ask in front of them.   She asked me in front of them again after being told not to.   I let it go while they were here , but when they left she and I had another talk. I reminded her what I had said about asking in front of them, and this time I added THE NEXT TIME YOU ASK IN FRONT OF THEM EVEN IF I HAVE ENOUGH THE ANSWER WILL BE NO BECAUSE YOU DID NOT DO IT THE WAY I TOLD YOU TO.    A few days went by and danged if she did not do it again in front of them.   I looked at her and said WHAT DID I TELL YOU?   Then I looked at the other little girls and explained it all to them like I did my niece.   These are very intelligent well behaved little girls and they totally understood it was nothing against them, but I wanted my niece to do things a certain way and she had disobeyed me.   Then I turned back to my niece and said I told you to stop asking in front of them and you did not do it.   I also told you next time you did it even if I had made enough the answer would be NO!   I could not believe what my niece said next.   After all that she actually had to nerve to say again IN FRONT OF THEM well can they stay?   I looked her right in the eye and said NO I TOLD YOU IF YOU ASKED IN FRONT OF THEM THE ANSWER WOULD BE NO AND YOU DID SO NO IS THE ANSWER.   I then turned to the other girls and said I am sorry if she had asked me like I told her to you could have stayed, because I did have enough made today. But because she can not learn how to do it right she has forced me to make my point.    IT WORKED.   That was the last time she asked me in front of anyone she learned to ask me on the side.

     Had I allowed her to get away with this thing of asking me in front of people to get what she wanted she would have kept doing it.   I know she had been doing it with her parents and getting away with it, because when I told her mom what I did she said she does that to me all the time.   I told her mom well she is done doing it to me.   I refuse to be manipulated that way especially by a child.   The ironic thing is I have noticed some adults will do the same thing. lol If they think you are going to say no about something or have a problem with something they are about to do they will let you know about it in front of other people thinking you will do what they want then.   And yes sometimes it will work depending on the circumstances, but if they think they are fooling me they are nuts lol I know exactly why they do things the way they do.  

     So the moral to this story is if you do not want your children to grow up to be manipulators do  not let them get away with it when they are kids.   Bad behavior is soooooooooooooooo much easier to stop in a child then in adult.   However it is not impossible to stop in an adult if you can get them to see what they are really doing. *smiles    I stopped my brother from picking on me after nearly 50 years of him doing it.   You have to be creative to correct bad behavior in adults lol so fix it while they are little, and save everyone a lot of headaches.

     First the good news my nephew is back out of the hospital and doing as well as can be expected at this time. I should be really happy about that great news, and I was for like and hour.   Then the strangest thing happened out of no where and for no reason something popped into my head that happened nearly 3 years ago.   I thought I had forgotten all about it, but there it was right in the front of my mind washing over my good feelings about my nephew and putting me in a sad mood.   The crazy thing is it should not have been able to do this.   The 2 things had nothing to do with one another.   There was nothing in the news about my nephew that should have triggered this long buried memory, and yet there it was.   Sometimes I wish I could just flip a switch and shut off parts of my memory, the parts with the bad memories in it.   Usually I know where things like this come from and have some idea what brought them back to the surface of my mind.  This time I got no clue what caused this one to surface.   Things like that tend to worry me, because as many of you know I am a psychic empathy and when something comes into my head from such a long gone time ago there is usually something attached to it that made it happen.

     Only time will tell why it happened MAYBE , but for now I am going to try to push it back out of my head or at least to the back of my mind so I can enjoy the good news that my nephew is home from the hospital.   The hard part is going to be to not obsess about this random thought and there by keep it on the surface.   An  on off switch for my mind would be really helpful about now.

     Keystone have you ever heard the word.   It is a term originally used to describe the top stone in an arch way.   The stone that without it the arch would collapse.   It has in later years taken on the meaning of something that other things depend upon.  Lately I have been feeling like I am in the position of the keystone and I got to tell you I do not like it here.   It is a ponderous load to have on your shoulders everyday.   Everyone depending on you relying on you to get things started nothing happens if you are not there.   I should not have to be there holding everyone's hands to get the things done that need doing.

    I have often wondered how the keystone keeps from being crushed beneath the weight of the building above it, as it holds up the arch way for people to pass through.   It is not fun to feel like you are a keystone and the whole world is on your shoulders. I just wonder how long it will be till I break.