Away with Toxicity!

My mom always had to remind me "You're not one of the adults" when I was a child. I was in such a hurry to be all grown up and in charge and whatever else I thought came along with being all grown up. Ironically, it seems like it took me especially long to become actually grown up.

Yesterday was a "grown-up" day. I've had them before and they always appear to be difficult and end up being easy. And ALWAYS, they end with a feeling of relief. It happened when we said "no" to buying a car from a family member, it happens every pay check when we pay off debts instead of go to Disneyland (although I am determined to make that happen this year...but the kids would rather go to Sea World...obviously they've never been to Disneyland!). But today was unique because I had not one, but two opportunities to be grown up. The first opportunity was to give a professional and courteous two weeks notice to my boss, when a good portion of me wanted to storm in there, throw my keys at him and tell him if he's so smart he can figure it out for himself. But I knew it would be better not to burn any bridges. My kids are friends with his kids, his wife is a sweetheart, and she's the one who's hurt the most by my leaving. (her 35 hour week just turned into a 60 hour week without pay.) But the work environment had become toxic for me. I was experiencing nightmares, dwelling on percieved injustices, and bringing my grumpy butt home to my family. Toxic.

My second opportunity to be grown up was to cut off a needy-selfish, (and as it turns out)lying "friend". I use quotations around friend because I've just never really been into this relationship. I generally trust people too easily and I have had my guard up with this woman since the day I met her...that tells me something. It was one of those emotionally exhausting things where you get off the phone, or leave the park and realize "wow, I totally did not enjoy that." And yet, she kept coming around, and I kept answering the calls because I didn't want to be that person who just ducked out and didn't actually say "this isn't working for me anymore." But I did chicken out a little, I did let JP take some of the blame (with his permission and even encouragement). Ironically, the proverbial "last straw" was the thing she called for my advice (or rather JP's advice) on. She's been accused of using another person's credit card without permission. While she can say "I just don't think I could have done this" and "There's no way I can believe I would do something like this" and "I have racked my brain, and I just can't remember a time when there would be something like this that I would have done", she can't seem to say "I absolutely did not do this." JP told me "cut it off now, they never would have summoned her if they weren't absolutely positively sure they've got the right person."...When I told her that I couldn't accept her calls anymore or meet her at the park with the kids anymore her response was "so...since I did this, we can't be friends anymore?" I felt that was her confession right there, and not only do I not want to hang around with somebody that would cause concern for the safekeeping of my valuables, there's the whole possibility of future background checks concern. I don't need to have any "known associations" if you catch my drift.

Its funny, I thought it would be difficult to do these things. But, as always, it turned out to be simple, and left me feeling good. Two Toxic Relationships...GONE! And I feel GOOD.