I couldn’t sleep so I thought I would write what might very well be my last public entry.

When I started public journaling about two years ago the last thing I had in mind was pissing people off with my thoughts, opinions, beliefs and experiences. It just seemed like a fun thing to do. I thought maybe someone would find some of it interesting or maybe even helpful and inspiring in some way. Maybe someone would learn something from it, or maybe it would put a smile on someone’s face to read something funny after they’d had a bad day. I didn’t expect everyone to agree with everything I wrote. But I figured people would have sense enough not to read my journal if they didn’t like what I might have to say.

Some people have said that I beat myself up too much for my past mistakes and that I have shouldered too much blame. Others feel I need to take even more responsibility by accepting even more blame. But this shouldn’t be a matter of public debate and up to others to decide what I should and should not blame myself for. It should be up to ME.

The absolute last thing I ever intended to do with public writing was piss people off. Yet I seem to have done a fine job of doing just that with people I know. Very seldom has anyone I never met had a problem with anything I’ve written. They’ve disagreed, but they haven’t taken things personally or jumped down my throat because they either misunderstood where I was coming from or didn’t have enough information to be judging the situation. Yet I have been accused of rejecting those who never reached out to me. I have been accused of never accepting fault for anything even though I’ve clearly written about my part in the Maliheh saga and taken full responsibility for my share of what happened with her, amongst many other things with other people and other issues.

No one has to like me or agree with everything I say, but I should have a right to be myself and express myself freely in my own journal without being condemned for my emotions/actions or accused of false intentions/motivations. Inviting people to leave my journal if it bothers them has done me no good. And so I am trying to consider the feelings of those more sensitive readers as well as my own. I don’t want to upset people because I may handle a certain situation a certain way or believe certain things. But I also have a right to be who I am.

Somebody actually called me selfish for being unwilling to take the blame for something I didn’t feel I was guilty of simply because it would make some of my readers happy. They said so what if I wasn’t being true to myself if it would make those I’m supposed to care about happy? But that would be like telling a woman to just let her man beat her if it makes him happy and insisting she’d be selfish not to let him do so. I’m sorry, but I’m nobody’s liar, and if that’s being selfish, then yeah, I’m a selfish bitch. If making others happy means being untrue to myself, then I’d rather let others down.

So now I’m trying to decide if I should stop public journaling so I can be myself privately and not upset others while I’m at it. A part of me regrets letting those I know know about my journal, but that was part of the fun; to share my life with those I know. It was my way of letting them know what was up with me. It was supposed to be anyway. Instead, I’ve succeeded in pissing people off when I do something like blame God for my problems. Not something I planned on doing. Do I blame myself for it? Well, let’s just say that I’m sorry I upset anyone, but not sorry I said what I honestly felt. Normally I don’t give a shit what others think, but these are people I care about. As I said before, the more I care about you, the more I want to please you as long as I’m not being unfair to myself in any way. As for what some stranger in Texas may think about what I have to say or some stranger in Australia – I don’t give a shit. Maybe that’s wrong of me and maybe I should give a shit about them as well, but I just don’t.

I suppose I have a few options. I could keep going as I have been and continue to piss people off. I could start another journal elsewhere and not tell anyone I know about it. Or I could stop public journaling altogether and just go back to writing in Word only. If I did the latter I probably wouldn’t delete or mark private my public journals, but just abandon them instead. It’s a tough dilemma. I love public writing and I don’t want to give it up, but I sure am considering it more than ever before. I guess I’ll take some time to think about it. I really do want to be able to write in a way that suits me and that I see fit, but I really don’t want to upset anyone. Really, I don’t. So over the next day or so, I’ll decide whether or not to stop public journaling, tweeting, Formspring, etc. Just what is it with Formspring lately anyway? I was gonna shut it down cuz it was so dead, but now it’s totally come to life.

Anyway, I probably will drop at least the journal. It’s been a fun two years and I’ve gotten lots of interesting feedback and insight and I’m sorry it has to end this way, but I had no idea it would become what it has become for me. I had no idea my journal would become so popular on every single site I write at and that so many people would be touched – in both good and bad ways – by my writing. I’m flattered for the most part, but I’m tired of hearing that I’m too damn nice one minute, then an evil bitch the next. And I’m tired of being told the so-called “right” way to do things. Like I said, my decision isn’t official yet. I will take a day or two to think about it.

Later…

“A question, not a criticism: Does what these people think really mean that much? If you believe you’re being treated unfairly by a certain person or a group of people, is it constructive take on their unfairness as your burden?”

This was just one of many responses I got in regard to my last entry where I talk about considering stopping online journaling because I didn’t want to keep hurting people’s feelings or pissing them off. Hmm…does what they think REALLY matter to me? Does it REALLY, REALLY matter? Perhaps not enough to stop online journaling after all, and so I guess once again I will give into my selfish side and just accept the fact that like any other writer out there who likes to post online, not everyone’s going to like or agree with every single thing I say. And as someone else said, it’s not my responsibility to dry their tears. I can’t control or predict how people are going to respond to something I write any more than I can control or predict how they’ll respond to something I may wear in public. So as I’ve said about a million and one times before, you’re invited to leave my journal if it bothers you or bores you in any way. Otherwise, read at your own risk!

We only paid half the rent and left a note in the box briefly explaining what was going on. Jesse came down when he got in and my first concern was that Mr. Little Rich Boy was getting fed up with us having to split the rent, even though we don’t do it every month and we’re always all paid up by around the 10th at the latest. Even with a kid, I doubt this guy has ever known a day in his life of struggling. Instead, he just wanted to know more about what was going on. I guess he had heard about all the cut-offs and all that was going on in the news.

If the members of Congress can stop dying, (yeah, that really pisses me off that millions of people, including myself, have to suffer because of the death of someone most of us never even met) a new one will be sworn in in a couple of weeks that is expected to give that single vote needed for them to proceed with doing the right thing and sending the damn checks out. Really, I can’t believe these things are even a matter of debate. It’s like finding a bleeding man in the street and stopping to take a vote as to whether or not we should try to save him. That’s ridiculous! Just ridiculous. Politics, politicians – it all makes me sick. They want to let so many people suffer because of the national debt which is THEIR OWN damn fault for wasting money in the first place! Maybe if they’d stop giving so many millions of our dollars to other countries, we wouldn’t be in this mess! I’m just so sick of having to suffer for other people’s stupidity! I’m ashamed and embarrassed by my fellow human beings at times. Meanwhile, how come it is that when I screw up something I’M the only one to suffer?! I’m just so fed up with people I don’t even know basically dictating our lives and how we live and what we can do, etc. And they call this the land of the free?

They sent the forms in the mail saying to keep on sending them in. This eases a lot of the stress since they obviously know they’re going to be sending checks soon enough and don’t want to get backed up in forms. My new worry (yeah, it’s just one worry after another) is how soon the checks will get to us. Again, I only make so much online so fast, though my latest idea still shows some promise. Not as much as I’d like, but enough for now.

Like I said, I’m not as stressed out as I was and things may not look as hopeless, but it’s still bad enough. And I can’t believe anything anyone says until we actually receive the money.

But then what? Say we got the money right now. The question of whether or not the jobs can beat the extension is still an issue.

sighs Poverty is such a rough life. Might as well quit complaining and learn to live with it, though, cuz nothing’s going to change where that’s concerned. It’s just what was meant to be for us. And I thought it was basically only those with kids who struggled!

In other news, the weather has been hot and dry and keeping the dogs quiet. They probably still go off early in the morning when he takes off, but they’re not going on 10-hour fits in this heat. They will as soon as it cools down, though.