I once knew a person who seemed to have it all together. She had a brick house with a koi pond and lush green grass, a great family consisting of a good looking business savvy husband and one son, everything in her life was organized by color, size, fabric and style. She drove a BMW and always had no less than $100 in cash with her at all times. She bought things without ever thinking how it would impact her bank account. If she wanted a new flat screen TV then she went out and bought it. If she wanted a designer pair of jeans, she thought nothing of it to go and purchase it for herself.
Being her friend was exhausting on many levels. I felt I had to clean my house so it sparkled any time she would come over because her house was always perfect. I got anxiety when she'd walk through my doors because she would say things to me about my house that *she* would change if she lived where I was living. She kept telling me that I need to buy certain things to make my house the way she thought it should be. After a while, I started to agree with her. Like I was being brainwashed, I started spending money I didn't have on things for a house I didn't feel needed any decorations.
It was like Pleasantville met the Jones' who NO ONE could keep up with because her life was full of excess. When I see children who are all dolled up somewhere and their hair is tied back neatly in bows and their clothes are all ironed and starched and their shoes have no scuff marks and the tiniest bit of food that falls on their clothing gets quickly erased with the
Tide To Go pen I wonder if I am doing something wrong. Am I doing an injustice to my children because I send them out in public in hand-me-downs from their cousin!?
I came to the realization that she was just someone I couldn't be friends with because she made me feel a certain way about myself that I wasn't used to feeling when I was in the company of a friend. I haven't talked to her in a long time. She hasn't contacted me. I haven't contacted her. Our friendship was brief. It was one of those things where you become fast friends with someone yet all you know is what's on the surface. But, in time you see the real person and you realize it's not who you thought they were. I've had this happen one other time in my life with someone i felt very close to. She viciously stabbed me in the back and in a way stabbed my Marble's in the back as well. To this day she still wears a mask and I truly believe none of her friends know the magnitude of how bad I was let down when her true character was revealed.
The reason for this post is because we all have toxic people in our lives. We all have people who we deal with on a regular basis that make us feel a certain way about ourselves that we wouldn't let anyone else make us feel. But, for some reason we allow that particular Somebody to impact us in a negative way without retaliation. Well, I retaliated twice. Both times I was able to remove the toxin from my life. But just like an alcoholic whose liver might never recover after that have stopped from years of drinking, my openness to befriend people disintegrated right along with those toxic friendships. I guess I didn't really get rid of them, did I?
