Like Two Bulls in a Small Pen

“Be thankful for every heartbreak, for they were planned.  They come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.  Their purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life.  And you do.”  I would give credit to the author here, but I got this from Pinterest and no author was listed…

Let it go on the record…I, Aleta Kaylee, am not the best at discernment.  Discernment is simply not my gift.  For others, red flags and warnings and alarms can be going off and I will sit there blissfully unaware, dazed by the newness and shininess of a new person. 

That dazed state is a pretty accurate description for myself for the past few months.  Perhaps I had simply been optimistic.  Perhaps I had really only scratched the surface with the person that I’d been spending time with. (Shrugs sholders).  Who knows?

Hindsight is 20/20.  Looking back now, there were so many signs that I had missed; or things that I didn’t analyze that I should have. 

Things had begun going south about a month ago, but as I sat at my friend’s wedding recently, I began reflecting…and I began thinking about what I needed and what was really lacking.

I think in any friendship, relationship, what have you, you will sometimes learn new things about yourself…and this had been no different. 

Now, while I have not been blessed with the gift of discernment, I have been blessed with the gift of encouragement.  I am always very forthcoming with compliments.  I love to give them.  I love to build people up.  In turn, something that I realized I desperately needed in a relationship was compliments. 

Call me vain all you like… I may be a chubby girl, but I put a lot into my outfits daily….ESPECIALLY when I go out.  It may seem like such a small, superficial thing, but for me…Very few things make me happier than if I have a headband, necklace, and purse to perfectly match my dress.  I put a lot into my outfits.  Frankly, in this day and age, where dressing like a homeless person is almost celebrated, I think that for one to put so much thought into their outfit…well, it SHOULD be acknowledged.  If you see that I have in any way dressed up or “gussied up something special” for you, I would like for it to be acknowledged.  It is nice for the little things to be noticed. 

Perhaps I’m vain, but even a “you look nice” wouldn’t have been that bitter to roll off the tongue.  What I got was “I’m no good with compliments.”  Frankly, I think at the very heart of the matter, it was more of a power play.   

Also, I’m finding that I am an extremely extroverted person.  I thrive when my schedule is chock full of social events and meetings with friends.  Again, this may seem silly or frivolous to some, but I enjoy “peopling” my life as much as I possibly can.   While I understand that not everyone is like me in that, it is something that I truly enjoy.

Although I already knew this little tidbit about myself…it has become abundantly clear.  I, Aleta Kaylee, am a control freak.  Before you begin chanting “amen” and vigorously nodding your head, I want it to go on record…he was too.  While I may can dress the part of a 60s housewife…I am wholeheartedly an independent, free-thinking, foul-mouthed, full of sass, millennial.  And him?  Well, he is a man with the mentality of a man in the 1960s.  Neither are bad things…neither of us are bad people…or “wrong” in our line of thinking.  However, in retrospect, I’d say we got along about as well as 2 bulls in a small pen about 60 percent of the time. 

Finally, the last thing that I can say that I’ve learned is…I am very okay with myself.  I know, I’m overweight.  I know that I have flaws.  But I am very confident in the skin I’m in.  There are things I want to change, sure…but I am “okay” with myself.  And that, in itself, is becoming a rarity in this day and age.  I hope that in relationships/friendships to come, no matter the opinion of another, I hope that I will not lose sight of that. 

To end this, I will say that in every “parting of the ways” there is always a bit of grief.  A person’s absence, whether it be a friend or more, leaves a bit of a void, and takes a part of you with them.  Who you were at that very point in time, when you were with that person, you will never be exactly that person again.  There is a loss there, and a bit of grief.  But we learn, we grow, and we move on.