Pay It Forward

Today I got a nice little treat. I started off the morning extremely groggy (from a Tylenol PM the night before) and so I stopped into McDonald's on the way to work to grab a sandwich and a coke - hoping it would wake me up.

Upon arriving at the window to pay, the guy told me the lady in front of me bought my breakfast! Well how sweet was that? I guess there really ARE nice people out there! I honked and waved at her- and then am now determined to Pay It Forward somehow. I'll probably have to help someone out in the Toll booth behind me going home today or something. Maybe that was the reason she did that for me- hoping I would be nice to someone else.

But then that got me to thinking- how come strangers can be nice to us and we can be nice to strangers and yet the people we see and love every day, we're sometimes not so very nice too?

It got me to thinking- and looking back at a lot of people I've known throughout the years. Moving to Houston sort of forced me to weed out the bad. I don't see the same people I used to everyday ... and even though cell phones have free long distance, not being around sort of helps out the "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" thing - and so the phone calls from some people have dropped off too... but there were a LOT of people- coworkers, people I dated and people I was friends with that treated me very badly. Being treated so well now by bosses and cowokers, friends and of course, Conrad- brings it even more to my attention. I was paging through my mind this morning on a lot of old things that happened and I was thinking- WHY did you allow him/her/them to do that? If some of the things that have happened to me in the past happened to me NOW, those people would be long gone...

Want some examples? These are mostly dating examples.... about the things I somehow put up with.

* I dated someone once who was food OBSESSED. He weighed his meat on a scale and when a box said 1 serving = 1 cup, the measuring cup came out and 1 cup is what we got. When he wasn't measuring out our food (if one of us cooked for the other), he was pawing through my pantry and pulling out the offending items asking me- "why are you eating all these empty calories?" He told me he didn't want fat wife and at the time, I was a size 8. Not exactly fat.

* I dated someone else who was actually a friend for a long time before. He broke up with me, via email, after a long long long friendship. He also was fond of telling me, a few weeks before, what was annoying about me- mostly that I either LOVED or HATED everything. I had no gray area and this was annoying.

* I dated someone who had recently broken up with someone else- and I daresay the breakup was not his idea. No matter how awful this woman was to him and she WAS awful... he tried to romanticize her- one day I actually came across a chalkboard in his house, listing out her attributes. Keep in mind she held down no job, had a child that lived with his dad- because she was declared unfit, I rarely saw her (they lived down the street from a friend) when she was washed and presentable, she had a terrible temper and one day while playing cards with the group LITERALLY turned into the devil, yelling and screaming... but the chalkboard said how she was tender, caring, a good mother, and beautiful. GROSS... but *I* ended up being "not someone he was looking for"... I guess having a job and paying my bills put me in a category he wasn't ready to deal with.

The list goes on ... and I do not mention these things to offend or embarass the people I'm talking about- should they read here. I mention them because it's not something anyone should ever put up with. It's about respect and consideration. Like the example of the email break up. This person was my friend and there were many years of caring and respect that went down the drain for awhile (we are friends again) but at the time, really really hurt me. It took the better part of a year or more to get over some of the things that went down- because I felt betrayed by a friend. You don't want to date me anymore because I'm not someone you would marry - well ok, but I AM your friend and I deserve better. I deserved better than an email and I deserved better than the terrible phone call that followed it.

I say all this to say- why can't we be nice to each other? Why could I not tell these people that I deserved better? Why in the WORLD did I tell the Food Nazi to get his head otu of my pantry and his body out of my house? If you're working with me, dating me, being my friend, etc... why aren't you nice to me? I know you must care about me to be my friend- ask me to be in your wedding, etc... then how come you're not nice?

Why did it take me over 30 years to find someone who could treat me the way I wanted to be treated? I don't know- I'm just grateful I did.... and I'm afraid I probably don't tell him enough how much he means to me or that I appreciate how I always have a nice relaxing place to go home too, that's not a war zone. I try very hard to tell him by cooking nice meals and doing fun things and being considerate of his feelings, but it's not always a good substitute for just saying thank you...

So thanks Conrad. Thanks for being absolutely perfect for me and for treating me like a queen, even when I don't deserve it. I will always try to make you happy and make sure you are well taken care of. Just please please don't go buy a meat scale.

Love,

Karyn