Buuu, as Isis says when it's cold. Ha. I have to change into something else cause I'm doing laundry and I should wash this skirt so it's clean the next time I wear it.

So.. I'm not really sure what I intended to say when I opened this.

Yesterday I got in a big fight with Amelia and Loren. Amelia and I are over it, because we've fought so much before that this was nothing. To make a long story short, I drove, I'm bad at directions, as usual, they take it to mean that I'm a danger to society and they're going to be in the hospital if I continue driving. I stop and tell them to apologize or I'm not going, Loren takes the key, comes over to my side and insists that he has the right to kick me out and drive home himself. I remind him that I'm not a little girl, that this isn't his car, that there is absolutely no reason I shouldn't drive, that I'm not intimidated by him just because he's my older brother or taller than me. He tries to persuade me otherwise. As does Amelia.

Half an hour later, they see reason and give me back the key. But what reason they saw is merely that I was not going to give up the seat. I did also kick my brother a lot, because he didn't physically try to pull me out but he had that attitude that Colin got that one time he threw me to the floor, that attitude like, I THINK I'M RIGHT BECAUSE I'M TEN YEARS OLDER THAN YOU AND I WILL GO TO ANY LENGTH TO PROVE IT TO YOU. So I felt that it would only be a matter of minutes before he tried to physically pull me out so I kicked him every time he touched me.

I should forgive him. He did apologize for hurting me, but I think he meant physically and he didn't. I'm the one who probably hurt him. I bit his arm really hard but he said it didn't hurt. He said some mean things and I feel that there's nothing I can do to make him see who I am. And I have to realize that. I have to realize that my anger and my protests don't help them see the light. I never really meant them to. I was only defensive because I felt I had to prove myself, or at least try. I need to let them prattle on about how I suck at life and not care. Honestly, I know I'm a good driver, I know that I'm a safe driver. I know that while I may not always pay attention to directions, I pay attention to my car. I like to be able to do things smoothly and safely.

And I also need to know that I'm not driving well just to prove to them that I can. I'm driving well because I want to drive well, because I want to drive safe.

Half of their protests are just preference. I hate that shit. Seriously, if it came to a more objective look at my safety, they would see that I don't swerve all over the place, I don't slam into cars or run red lights or stop signs. I don't speed, I don't slam my breaks. I'm safe.

Just because I pull out of the parking lot a different way than you would (this is seriously what they bitched about) doesn't mean that you're justified in telling me that it's wrong. As I told Amelia while she was bitching, there is no right way to pull out of this parking lot. There were two ways, to the right and to the left. I chose one and it worked fine. Just because you would have chosen the other doesn't mean I have to. I'm the driver. I get to make those decisions.

I just realized that they are the epitome of a back seat driver. Because they're always giving me so much shit about my abilities, I thought that was what it was all about but seriously it just dawned on me that there are people all over the world like this, they even gave a name for it, back seat drivers. Jeezus, why didn't I realize that?

Sometimes I'm so defensive I can't see passed the focus on my flaws...

It's funny because during everything I do, I have this running narrator/analyzer. Like I'm bitching at Amelia for bitching at me and I'm thinking, why do we all have this anger and hate? It was weird because it was subtle. We came out of the movie, Wanted, and we didn't come out the way we came in. I didn't even feel any emotion, I just was really quick to bicker and fight. That seems to be what it was, like a defensiveness, a need to prove ourselves right, an incapability to let each other be, and a huge pigheadedness. We all had it. And that's why it culminated with that half an hour of sitting around trying to get each other to see our way. Except Loren and Amelia felt that their ways were the same.

And I can handle it, but that's the problem. When you go in it protecting yourself, you go in it expecting that you'll be hurt. Therefore you go in it getting what you want. I expect people to gang up on me and focus on my flaws. I expect them to underestimate my abilities. I would be surprised if they simply believed in me, believed in my power. It's as simple as that, had faith in my capability to be strong and safe, to be able to process a situation.

And that's what I get. I get what I expect. Only it's not really what I want. I can protect myself, but I don't do it the right way. I realized that because I felt betrayed by some of the hurtful things Loren said and I came home and I was mad so I was not tapping into recessive emotions, the "weaker emotions," if you will. So I watched a movie and talked to John, but then my mom called me back from earlier when we had called during the half hour of sitting around but she didn't answer. So I told her a little bit and she said I couldn't drive the van anymore (that's why it happened, by the way, it wouldn't have happened in my car or Amelia's car.)

After the phone call I was kind of bothered and upset so I started talking about it with John and when I got to the part where I'm hurt that Loren feels that way about me, that he said those things, I started crying, and I realized that I was actually hurt. The past couple hours I'd been so defensive about my emotions, convinced that the best way was to pretend I didn't care and just resent him and never speak to him again, that I didn't even realize that it hurt me. I didn't even feel it until I cried. And it showed me my pattern, how quickly I make up my mind to reject any connection. To not express myself to people. Like if he calls me a big baby when he's angry, he's a lost cause and I'll just have to give up and accept that he hates me - and put up my wall to protect myself.

As we were fighting, I was thinking, why is this happening? Cause I always ask myself why I'm put in this situation. There's always something to learn. Why? Because we're not meant to fight and be hurt and be cruel. We weren't created to live that way. And to me, if there's something going on of that nature, I'm unhealthy in some way, I'm doing something wrong. It's not my priority to find out what they're doing wrong. And that's what we do when we fight. We immediately begin to blame the other person, to try to fix them. Because inside, we know we're not meant to disagree and fight. We've got this mindset that says that peace is not possible. And realistically, it's not our decision to make everybody in the world get along. But we can make the decision to get along with those that want to make the same decision. People try to curb arguments and fighting sometimes, they just do it in a very selfish way by making other people give them what they want or see things their way. And they blame each other, because they feel that to be blamed is to be told with superiority that you're wrong, therefore you must change.

But it takes two to tango on many levels. You bring forth situations that you're going to participate in that will reflect where your mindset is. And I brought forth that situation, my contribution to it. Loren and Amelia will be in whatever mindset they want to. I can't stop them. But although Amelia might have kept bitching and Loren may have still thought me a big baby, it would not have culminated in that way without my participation.

So I have to ask myself why I magnetized that situation. Not on the surface layer - because obviously I refused to go on without the apology and that's when it really began. And it's not about blame because it's not about the situation. We focus too much on the situation - who was right, who was wrong. It's not about what we've done, because we've already done it.

Sometimes I blame people A LOT, and I'm negative and I'm absolutist about the fact that they're just shitty people and then I stop and I think about what it feels like to have that kind of negative energy thrown at me. And I think, is this what I want, do I want them to feel this way? And I always have to answer no. I always have to pause what I'm doing and say, am I so uncompassionate that I want even my friends to feel as horrible as I've felt?

We get so focused on how we feel, and we feel afraid that if there isn't a consensus of our opinions that they won't be true. We feel that we need more than one agreement to bring our views power. But our beliefs already have power, we already have power, and although having someone else come in brings us confidence, it does not bring us power. We already have the consensus when we do things through our Higher Self. We are already tapped into the One power, and the All-power. And on the surface level, we don't need someone else's consensus in order to have that power.

We can't misuse the power, even in a consensus. It's not meant to make other people feel worthless. We can't help if they feel worthless, but when we're afraid of our own lack of worth, we'll do anything to prove it, even put someone else down, even try to destroy their worth and thus the validity of their opinions. But we have no identity but the whole identity and destroying them does not give us a worthier identity. We need to ask ourselves, does putting them down prove anything about our worth? Aren't we still insecure and scared regardless of how much we try to make people feel insignificant? And therein lies the selfishness. Because nobody wants to admit that they want people to feel horrible. At least, not general nice people. But that's exactly what we're doing. That's exactly our aim. And we don't focus on that part of it because we're only focusing on what we think we gain from being cruel. And that justifies it in our head.

But the whole thing is an illusion. We won't gain anything by being cruel. We can only gain worth by restoring love and we can only restore love by being compassionate. Because we don't have a separate identity from all those people we try to hate. We're only trying to hate ourselves in service of an illusion. Is it logical to try to find worth in love, try to love ourselves through hate? No, but people begin by denying the whole identity and separating ourselves, distinguishing ourselves. Trying to find a single identity.

We have this word selfish. And it's wrong to be selfish not just because on the surface we have a community. But we have deeper levels of a community, a connection, an identity that runs deeper and is therefore more significant. And severing those connections, trying to sustain ourselves away from God, away from the whole is impossible. However, a lot of people call me selfish, but the truth is, focusing on myself is to focus on everyone. Because I'm not selfish, because I know that my self isn't a singular self. That to believe in just a Melissa identity is to believe in an illusion. And it will give me nothing that I want. It will give me no heart, no power, no safety, no God. It's only wrong to focus on your self when you believe your self represents a singular identity. You're missing the bigger picture - focusing on just one detail that, when taken apart from the whole, really says nothing significant about the meaning of the picture.

You can isolate a detail on the surface level to an extent. But it's an illusion to deny that underneath the surface, the identities are still isolated.