Sometimes when I am arguing with someone, I will get so caught up in my argument or theirs that I miss the ‘big’ picture. I fall down the rabbit hole time and time again without fail. It’s like a reflex; you can’t fight it.

Sometimes I want to be in the rabbit hole [but most times, not really]; but I don’t want people I care about going in with me. The rabbit hole is fine to foes, but friends deserve better. It sucks that to think that way anymore though is misconstrued more often than not.

And maybe it’s just the area. I have never been down the rabbit hole so many times with friends or loved ones as many times as I have in the VA. In TX, my motives were never questioned; they were received as I intended every time. The only time I fought with my best friend was once before my birthday when she said she would celebrate with me and then forgot about me to get drunk with strangers. We fought, but when my birthday came around, she came through in best friend recovery.

I’ve stayed with many of my best friends on different occasions when times were tougher for me. None ever thought I loved their kids too much. And boy did I love their kids. Kids bring me so much joy because they are honest to a fault, love with their whole heart, and just want to feel like they are something to someone; treat a kid like he is your friend, and he will do better to try and stay your friend. I may spoil kids, but not to the point of saturation. Christmas and birthdays are always the exception; I thought this was a nationwide belief, but I’m being made to see that it isn’t quite so. Kids make me feel young because they will play with me until I’m worn out and then continue on their own, lol. They make me feel loved because they don’t know just yet that you can use love to manipulate people. They are true friends.

My family was not the best as far as not being emotionally or physically abusive, but perhaps I get my love of giving from my adopted mom. All of us younger kids seem to have at least; my sisters are no better at Christmas than I am if they can, lol. But we gave more than just at Christmas. We helped strangers all the time. My mom would transport a woman we never knew a few times from the side of the road to her home because she always seemed to be walking home at night and in the country, it just wasn’t right for a woman to be doing alone anyhow. We gave food, clothes, and anything else we had to give. As kids, we never had to want for anything because that’s how my mom showed affection: with gifts. In my 12/13 years with that family, my mom told me she loved me all of a handful of times; affection was not her way. Maybe she made up for it with gifts, but if you don’t know the five love languages, you don’t know that it is a very real way that people show others they love them.

The love languages are not about romantic love, but love all around; how we love our friends, neighbors, coworkers, loved ones, spouses, and anyone else we choose to ‘love’.

For me, the opportunity to give a gift is the opportunity to show someone that yes I care about you, yes I know you, and yes I pay attention because you are important. For me, it is an opportunity to back up my words.

One of my best friends had two kids that I loved to pieces. Her son could tug at my heart strings, he knew it, and rarely abused it. =P Her daughter would leave me tongue-tied and I welcomed the challenge; a four year old leaving ME without a retort?!?! She was pure awesomeness. I even stayed with them for a few months when I was down on my luck. I cooked now and again, I did laundry, her husband did my laundry, I walked around in shorts and a sports bra most evenings, I played games with everyone, I gave massages to both her and her husband, I helped whenever I could, I babysat for little or no charge whenever I could, I sold my Gameboy Advance and games just so I could get her son some gifts for his birthday and she was ok with that…in Texas, everyone is family; you don’t have to earn your place, it’s inherently there. In Texas, we think about everyone else. In Texas, it is not about ‘me’.

I think that made it easier in Texas too. I didn’t have to teach my friends that. More often than not, they had to teach me. It took a few times to get me to go to family gatherings at holiday times, but I gave in more times than I declined. I had to be living in my car before I accepted cash help from a friend. I had to feel like my life wasn’t worth living before I accepted that I can’t bottle shit up.

I’m old fashioned. I can’t change that. I wish I could sometimes, but other times, I sleep better doing what’s right than doing wrong. I already have trouble sleeping as is; I do my best not to add to that.

And today I find myself pointing out how I am the bad piece of the puzzle. Only at the abrupt end of the rabbit hole did I realize this mind you, lol, BUT it wasn’t intentional ‘bad me’ syndrome, it was intentional ‘I want you to be happy’ syndrome and I fail. Every time. So sure, it turns around as ‘bad me’, lol [only realized it when I said it like that, of course], but at the heart of the argument is, I am just trying to do right for those I care about. And if I am not good for the picture, I am old fashioned; I will do anything to assure a loved one’s happiness including give them space.

A couple of my sisters still speak to me despite me going back into foster care when I was 15 [16?]. One has three kids I had never met, and I only met the baby last year. The two older boys I still have yet to meet. But I bought them a truckload of gifts for Christmas when my sister said they were struggling. Sure, they were family, but I hadn’t even met these boys and I was out buying video games and clothes going on the information my sister could give me about their likes and interests. A kid not have a ton of gifts to unwrap at Christmas? Not on my watch! I sent money to my other sister because that’s the way she wanted it, but I have never met her two kids either and they are related by DNA!

I love kids. They have potential. They can be made into better people. Adults suck; they care only for themselves and think the world should change, not them.