What I've Learned This Week About Outrage, Friends Who Could Not Possibly Rock Any Harder, Putting the Kabbash on Some Dubious Crap, and What It Means To Trust Someone...

At the start of 2006 I set a general goal for myself. Not a resolution, but more a guiding principle. Discretion. I have been very successful with employing this principle, on the whole, but of course, I have fallen short of the bar a few times, too. This week I have been sorely tested in this area. I haven't always known when to draw the line between "sharing information about my own life" and being a pot-stirrer. You know the type that keeps stuff going just because she gets off on it? I don't want to be that person... I've seen that "things" can get bigger and more blown out of proportion the more we talk about them, so I've started to check myself even when it's my own business I'm putting in the street.

It's not my intention to be vague here, but in the interest of putting the kabbash on the general ick that has resulted from some less than pleasant developments, I won't go into details. I can say this: I am already revisiting the object lesson of my post from about a week ago. I said there was power in understanding when something is not about you, in letting a person's negative impression of you stand. And letting it stand, in this case, for this reason, has nothing to do with a defeatist paradigm. It's about picking your battles. Sometimes you have to let another person, another institution, another entity try and convict you of some bogus, ambiguous social crimes in order to be at peace with yourself. You might just have to hang out there by yourself...go hard, etc.

But I'll say this, too. When you have an inner circle of people who know the truth, who can be all up in arms on your behalf, well that rocks. I can't say it any more simply. Look, I'm a strong woman. But sometimes it's nice to let someone else fight for you. Having a knight in shining armor, so to speak, doesn't make me feel any less formidable in my own right. It's made me feel even more powerful in this quiet, lovely way...

I know that trust has many illustrations and expressions. The one I've seen this week? Someone that I hold in high esteem not use his influence in my life to get me to do something I didn't want to do. I just felt so safe in that realization of his character. Like I didn't have to fight that battle in addition to the other ones because he got it.

As I said, this in addition to all the amazing friends God has given me who've kept me grounded and kept it real during the drama. Another terrific example. Last night my good friend E called me up and left me the best message. She'd told her dad about the recent goings on in Thesisland, and the man--who has never met me, incidentally--wanted to know if "he needed to go down there and storm the bastille."

Every woman needs a father, even if it's not her own, who would at least offer to storm an evil empire on her behalf.