I have realized something lately. Rather, I have allowed myself to admit something. Basically, I don�t expect any relationship to last.

This is difficult to put into words; particularly because it�s 3:30 in the morning, but hey, you love me, right? Heh. Yeah, well, maybe not after this entry.

Regardless, the thing I�m talking about is somewhat ethereal. At least that�s the only word which seems to describe it.

I have this� understanding that everything is temporary. It�s not as simple as saying that someone is a seasonal employee or that you�re substituting, temporarily for someone else. Bear with me here, folks, I�m taking an understood concept and attempting to fit words around it.

===I would make a really shitty director because the actors would never be able to act what my brain sees.===

Anyway, I have the �knowledge� that I�m just a little, tiny part in the big picture. That knowledge is nothing new. We�re all just little bits and pieces of the whole. To exemplify, it�s like that poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger. From a distance, it looks kind of fuzzy, but you can tell that it�s a muscle-man posing. Yet, when you get closer, you see that each part of the whole poster is made up of miniaturized covers of magazines. Each cover being a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Like that, I know that I�m just a little part in the big picture.

However, the realization/admission I had was more along the lines of everything being temporary.

Okay, maybe I can explain this better by going a different route.

I spoke with my sister the other day and she was crying and frustrated. Again.

===I love my sister and I care so very much about her. But there is this part of her which really frosts my cookies. On the off chance that she�s reading this� Stop. Heh. I�m bitching here, so just don�t read this stuff, Sis.===

Anyway, She was crying, again, about how her husband up and left her seven years ago and how it�s so unfair that she has to be raising the children by herself and all that. I�ve heard this far too often. I can almost recite it word for word. Or rather, I could if she used the same words every time.

Regardless, She was again complaining about the difficulties of her life and how she has no support and such. I understand feeling unsupported, it happens to all of us. And yet (and this is key) I don�t react the same way she does.

I�ve heard the same argument for seven years. Were I in her position, I would just require myself to get over it. I mean, the more you cry about how bad life is to you, the worse you feel and the less things improve.

I was thinking about that and how I would really like to say, �You�ve been whining about this same thing for seven years. Get over it. I don�t know how you can, but it�s about damned, fucking time you stopped bitching about something you can�t change. Accept that you can�t change it and move on.�

When I�ve said things of that sort in the past, she responds with comments about how she can�t move on because she has the kids and has to speak with their father on a weekly basis. My suggestion was that she not answer the phone when he called to speak to the kids. She would state that that didn�t help when it came time to drop the kids off for visitation. I suggested that she either take someone with her so he wouldn�t be prone to start something, or that she have someone else deliver and pick up the kids.

She never gave me a reason for why she couldn�t do those things.

However, something she said when it first happened, seven years ago, strikes me. And it�s the primary difference between she and myself. She stated that she had to feel it. Those were her words, amid tears and great, heaving sobs she screamed out that she had to feel it, that she had to feel it all.

To come up with some sort of analogy�

When walking through a room, you accidentally smack your knee against the dresser. It�s bruised and hurts. For me, I would growl and probably swear, then whimper silently about it for a few minutes. Then, I would put it out of my mind. My usual litany is something like this: �Pain is only temporary. Pain fades.�

For my sister, she would sit there and cry about it for a while. When she�d had enough tears, she would get up and move about her business, but she would limp for a while. And yet, if she felt like crying, or if something didn�t go right, she would remember that she had bruised her knee, and she would start sobbing about how much it hurt and how unfair it was that she was hurt when she was just walking through the house, you know.

*shrugs*

That�s not the extent of it, though. A month later, after the bruise had healed and there was no more pain, she would whine and sob about how she had bruised her knee and how it wasn�t her fault and she had done the right things, she�d just been walking along and it was so unfair that the dresser hurt her knee.

*shakes her head*

I really, really don�t understand that. I don�t understand that mentality. I would love to be able to open up my sister�s head, root around in there, and find out why she does what she does. However, I would probably get frustrated and confused rather quickly.

Personally, I think it�s much safer to just leave it alone; to leave my bitching here in the diary� a place where I hope she won�t find it. *chuckles*