Category: Karie Herring

In the dark side of light I was philosophical. I was, truly gnawing, chewing, digesting, spitting up and in my own smitten, selfish way, smiling at the awful incident. One that I thought might have pushed me to my outer edges of passionate, top end emotions.

Jogging in the cold, whipping air, in the twinkles of the cosmos I saw her, the flash, the defeat, the mourning. What was so special about her to cause me to feel the pain, to cry and half throw a fit over the casualty? The damage was done, I made attempts to repair, The Chad came in and made attempts to repair, we walked away, we let the situation simmer.

I was struck, like lightning with my epiphany about how the damage happened, about accepting that I could not mend what I could truly explain as wrecked. Destroyed. Obliterated. I did what any other person would do after digesting such an event.

Call Dell.

My poor hard drive crashed and I realized I felt so much pain for this. I was upset, emotionally tearful for my computer. WHY? I was asking myself and fighting with the situation, “Why are you crying? It’s a machine!” But the machine held a LOT of others secrets, information, it held parts of me, lots of good parts of me. I had come to think I had a “relation” of sorts with my computer. You see she saw me through last year…from beginning to end, so when she crashed I felt myself crash with her.

But I saw this brilliance. On my jog. I saw why I was mourning my hard drive. Crazy as the thought may sound. I was mourning a relationship that was damaged beyond all repair. I could not fix it, there was no reason, shit. just. happened! My brilliance was that hard drives are so much like people, relationships, relations. They crash, for no reason, totally unexpected, and the only thing you can do is make an honest attempt to repair. I F2’ed, I F12’ed, I F8’ed until I finally said F it and accepted the crash.

What helped me to accept the crash was The Chad. Telling me, “these things happen, hard drives crash, they are man made, they spin around and they just break.” That is what hit me on my jog. My dark side of light, to see that people we have in our lives spin around and around, they have a purpose, they offer us something, we reciprocate, and sometimes they crash because they have spun themselves out in an unhealthy way.

The crash is the hardest. I realized that I have had crashes, we all have crashes. But coming to the realization. that continuing to work on something that spun itself into a cosmic oblivion of nothingness, is toxic and is the first step to acceptance, to moving on. I found so much relief to know that what I needed from my hard drive could be salvaged via an external box. I will leave the technical mumbo out. By understanding that certain snips and scraps if not everything but the OLD operating system could be saved, I realized that in myself. I was salvaging from these crashes everything but the old operating system, I was evolving. I was letting go.

My hard drives have crashed with other people, I made every attempt to repair (including myself) and saw that I was not in repair but that those who I thought needed the mend were crashed. They are gone, they brought nothing else to a life, my life, anyone’s life. They are broken, NO ONE, not even their own repair system could fix them. I came to see that sometimes we have to accept things, people, relationships, crash and are broken, but if we can try to revive after the crash walking away with what really matters, taking the vital shards of what was scathed that we can move on. We can learn, we can eliminate the garbage, that what might have spun us into oblivion. Walking away taking pride, love, self respect, courage, honesty, justice, patience, forgiveness, to name a few and above else walking away with wisdom showed me that the damage really was not all that devastating. I walked away with A LOT!

Mourning was quick. I found that the drawn out mourning of a relationship was more of guilt. The Monday morning quarterback as I like to call it, “shoulda, coulda, woulda’,” or the face you feel some neglect, that you could have done more and I didn’t do that. I laughed. I laughed and smiled and felt such a relief that so much was gone that really was petty. I was starting new in a sense, only that much smarter, that much wiser, and that much lighter by not having that spinning hard drive, the constant spinning of toxic people in my life. So we have to look at when a crash happens, do we want to salvage the WHOLE drive or do we want to salvage just the parts that matter? Our own parts, our own operations, or do we want the supporting systems that really are the most vital?

After you repair do you ignore the crash or do you take away what you need, still remembering the fragility of man and that sometimes things, people, relationships crash. All we can do is call in our support, accept, move on and grow; grow up and away from that which was damaging. A new year, a new hard drive, new lessons.

I have been blessed with a very mellow dramatic, albeit over exaggerating, PPM (poor pity me), GOOD GAWD WTF type of family. I did not choose them. In fact, I chose my family in the eighth grade, Angela Lansbury I believe was my grandmother of depiction. I would need to search out that childhood project for excellent blog fodder. Regardless, my family is highly entertaining.

The theatrics is so thick one would have to wear a parka, rain boots, goggles and maybe a helmet to avoid the depth of shit that oozes from my family. Truly a made for TV, Lifetime mini drama.

Ttoday when I finally have begun my recuperating from the holiday I receive this email…which really doesn’t set off any emotion, just highly irritating to have my precious web invaded by such a load of horse shit:

It is my humble opinion, that once a human being with even the average level in intelligence upon viewing this, does not realize how petty their resentments, attitudes, greed,pride, avarice,greivances or grudges,self importance,anger,hatred,the denying of relationships of loved ones from loved ones out of some misguided ideation of superior morality or emotional maturity, does not realize how truly unimportant , in the grand scheme of God’s directives and teachings are in comparison has no soul and has not nor will not have a life worth living.

Now that “humble opinion” is that of my overly arrogant, clueless, alcoholic, overly medicated, sperm donating, excuse for a father. Sad really. I laughed and shook my head. The email was about the cosmos and relation to size, not sweating the small stuff, yadda, yadda, yadda. Whatevs. I generally read, say to myself “Cool” take the message and move on. But that first bit of hogwash had me saying “Oh please let the level of chaos and mellow drama stop….PUH LEASE!”

My “father” if you can refer to him as such, I generally call him by his first name so for the sake of privacy I will call him PITA; PITA seems to think I harbor some sort of anger, hate, grudge, whatever the eff the man believes based on his delusions of grandeur brought on by almost 40 years of substance abuse. Seriously, he thinks I must have LOADS of energy and feeling to be wasted on pointless, energy consuming, time wasting feelings of hate, anger, and grudge. Really, those feelings would require me to have a feeling or a care or want. Of which I am void.

Why?

Because why waste and let the little things like my PITA’s transference get in the way of my life, why let him get to me because he carries these feelings himself about the pure fact he was an empty excuse for a parent.

He was a worthless excuse for a spouse….to all of his wives. Oh wait…ah yes, I forgot…it’s a conspiracy, they (the former wives…including my mother) were all out to get him. To dump on him…the alcoholic, the drug addict, the PPM syndrome. I see this a lot in my family by more than just PITA, as if everyone else looks to dump on them. OY!

I guess what I am just up in arms at myself about was the fact that I even submitted any energy to the PITA on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. WHAT.A. JOKE. I made the mistake of showing gratitude, an attitude I carry with everything in life. Yes, I am quite thankful for bad happenings too…they do have a reason. Nothing in life happens by coincidence. So yes, I was thankful for the gifts The Chad and I received from PITA and the gifts received by my children, of which 2/3rds of the gifts will probably never be used because PITA has never taken the time to get to know ME as a daughter, let alone my children. Nope. PITA told me in a text (which I love writing for this fact…the statement cannot be claimed as conjecture. Seriously people if you don’t want people to second guess you, never put your crap in writing.) Oh yes, the text:

Here is my deal….this almost infuriated me…more or less was annoying at the sheer ignorance, and the fact the moron took so much time to type something that clearly states his own narcissism. My kids have no idea about their Grandpa PITA. Why? He’s toxic, so I do not allow him in my life. If I do, I am ALWAYS burned, so after 31 years I finally put my foot down. Seriously, when I get an over dramatic call that I, yes ME, am to bail HIM out of jail. Uh, negative ghost rider the pattern is full….full of your shit…and you are NOT my responsibility. The call was over excited, like a teen who was just busted and wanted Mom and Dad to bail them out of the shit hole they dug themselves into. No thanks. A reason why I DO NOT associate with him. But of course I get the attitude of disdain and “I can’t believe you are doing this to me” when I say…NO and I have children, you are not one of them.

I think I heard a hallelujah.

Anyway, PITA seems more interested that my children know of HIS existence than he does of theirs; and he wonder’s why I have nothing to do with him. Oh, maybe because you did the same thing to me as a child resulting in adult issues that I had to seek therapy and healing for. ALRIGHTY THEN! So I am glad to say I love the power of IGNORE, BLOCK, JUNK MAIL, Remove Sender and all the electronic powers that be, so that I never have to see another annoying email, text, or even paper letter again. Thank you USPS for the “Return to Sender” option within the postal service.

All I can do is pray that one day, if that SHOULD ever happen (highly doubtful), he will see the importance in knowing OTHER people and not that they always know YOU! Especially when they are family. Do you have any family members like that? They thrive on self-loathing, pity, and transference? The misery loves company syndrome as well? How do you deal with toxic family?