don't do it.

i have some great friends in my life (so blessed!), one particularly wise and awesome friend has a motto that has stuck with me, and i have adopted as my own. "i don't do fucked up" is something she says when toxic people try and gain access to her life. it seems so simple, and yet it can be difficult to discern and enforce. after all, we don't live in a black and white world where lines are clearly drawn and boundaries strictly observed. her point, and i think it's brilliant, is that if you have drama, and you want to project your fucked up shit onto me than you can take your show on the road because i'm not interested.

just think of it, imagine those people in your life that bring the drama with them everywhere they go; and now imagine you said to them, no thanks. not that you would necessarily toss them out of your life, but that you would let them know they needed to check their shit at the door because it's not allowed in big momma's house. easy to say, difficult to follow through on. because of this difficulty we tend to allow these emotional predators into our lives and homes just so we can avoid that awkward, sometimes painful conversation where we shine a light on their behavior.

i will admit that i am widely known as a bitch for saying things out loud that people would rather i didn't, i've been this way since i was so young i don't remember anything else. for me it was a survival mechanism that prevented me from drowning in a sea of passive aggressive brutality. naming what i see in front of me has helped me not completely lose my mind and become one of those people we all see in our downtowns eating their own hair and talking to themselves; so i am thankful for this personality trait. however, every positive has a negative. the negative side of this tell-it-like-it-is coin is that it pisses people off (especially people who are fucked up), and when it pisses these people off they will often come at you with an emotional sucker punch at the first sign of vulnerability. it is these people, that are emotional predators.

i'm guessing all of you have someone in mind right now as you read this, someone in your life that you can conjure without much effort who never shows up at your door without a hefty amount of baggage. maybe it's someone in your family, maybe it's someone you have called friend, regardless it is very difficult to tell these people, as toxic as they may be, to get out. to simply say, "i don't do fucked up". it's a direct, blunt, and somewhat vague sentiment. anyone who has been in your life for a while will want you to elaborate on what you think is "fucked up", and when you do you are walking a slippery tightrope. you know how their behavior makes you feel, and you know how it effects your life, but to define it can be difficult. if you can define it, than you risk feeling isolated in your truth. no one likes to feel lonely, even if it's due to honesty.

so there is your choice, say it out loud and sink into that feeling of being "an island of reality in an ocean of diarrhea" (jason mraz song), or hold it in and allow the fucked up diarrhea to wash over you and find refuge in your home and life. because pretending it's not there has never made it go away.