The death of innocence...

Innocence is an intresting thing. When we think of innocence too often we think only of the sexual aspects of it. Like in Deanna Carter's song, "Strawberry Wine" her loss of innocence was when she apparantly had an interesting and steamy experience on the banks of a river. But innocence is so much more than just getting your cherry popped! Innocence is how you view the world around you. There is in each of us the innocence of a child, that looks at the world around us through rose tinted glasses and looks for the good in people, expects the best out of life...and still believes in happily ever after. That is really what innocence is all about.

I sat thinking about innocence this morning. Trying to think of when did I lose that innocence? I always had this rosy outlook on life and the world...always expected a lucky break just around the bend....looked for the best in people...and believed that there is always some good in people.

Life has not been easy..it rarely is for anybody...is not whining..just facts..the death of a child and two divorces...yet somehow I managed to keep that view of the world and life in general. So when did I lose my innocence?

This trip to Kansas...living the summer there...was a life changing experience...and maybe not necessarily in a good way. I learned some ugly things about myself. I learned some ugly things about the world around me...and people...the vulnerability and gullibilty involved in thinking the best of people around you.

First there was my job. I worked for a company that was a lease to own...kind of like Rent a Center. I have always done customer service and know people have tempers and are rude, but usually it is founded in some problem...real or imagined...and it was my job to help them smile. But this job was different. It was collections in a business that already has a tendency to draw trash of every color of the human rainbow. I had to chase people down to collect money on shit they couldnt even afford in the first place. Some nasty houses too...dog shit, cat piss, rotting food...you name it I saw it. Playing a game of cat and mouse with deadbeats that had no intention of ever paying.

You lose faith in people. You start looking at people for their dishonesty and how they are lying to you and how they are going to cheat you instead of the good in people. Is hard to explain. It made me realize that while people are born with good in them they can easily kill it and very often do. Most people are just downright ugly. Some learn to control it better than others, but frankly it is more opportunity than it is integrity.

And then there was Amanda, the bitch I was living with...that woman that day in day out professed her undying love for me while she was stealing from me and lying to me. She, like no other person I have ever interacted with, used and abused that innocence that was in me. I trusted her, and even when I didnt completely believe her I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. That has always been my motto...the benefit of the doubt...just maybe they are right, just maybe they are telling the truth...and no matter how implausible an excuse might be...accept it for now.

Well I learned something...some people will take that...will stomp all over you...and then turn on you. When I left all I heard was the stuff I "stole" and the things I failed at (through the grapevine of course). No mention was made of all the stuff I left her...stuff that she didnt have when I got there. When I got there we were on a fucking air mattress that had to be filled 3 times a night. She had no job...she couldnt even get utilities because she owed them all money. When I left she had utilities, a bedroom group, bunkbeds for her boys, two tvs, two laptops a desk, a washer and dryer, a microwave...and all the cunt could tell people is how I stole her laptop (which was MY laptop that I took there), how I owed her $4,000 for child care because she was watching my kids when I was working (paying the bills), how I used her and then dumped her. No mention ever made about the 100.00 she stole from me that she still denied after I was gone.

And that was probably the worst of it for me. The lying. I hate being lied to. Lying to somebody is an insult to their intelligence. It is like saying...I can do this because you are to fucking stupid to understand otherwise and I can outsmart you because you are that fucking stupid. And boy could she lie. I could see it, I am not stupid and am very logical. I kept hoping she would reach the point of realizing that there is no need to lie to me. Hell, the 100.00 that I finally left over wasnt even the real reason I left...it was the fact that it was clear she did it..I mean she had the card before and after and it was a ATM withdrawal which can only be done with a card and pin...and was 3-4 blocks down from where she had an interview...15 minutes BEFORE her interview...but she not only did it...but lied...and lied...and repeatedly lied..with a straight face...acting angry and hurt that I would doubt her...to think that I was that totally stupid...that I couldnt see the facts right there in front of me...

The sad thing is...this is the first relationship I have ever been in that after I left it I had to change all my pin numbers and passwords, get new debit cards...I endangered my daughter...something I will never forgive myself for.

Garth Brooks did a song called "The Change". The chorus says.."And I hear them saying....you'll never change things...and no matter what you do its still the same thing...but its not the world that I am changing...I do this so..this world will know...that it will not change me." I alway used to say that I would never let people change me...and would point to this song...well Garth..I got news for you...sooner or later people do change you...it is inevitable...

I learned that people could claim to love you...yet lie to you...I learned that I was gullible...and really was that stupid...not because I could not see the facts...but rather because I believed that people are naturally honest...and I took people at face value...I learned that I was irresponsible trusting my daughter to a person like that...a mistake I will never make again. I learned that love is a dream that does not exist..people co exist...people learn to live with each other and care for each other...but the love of fairy tales...is exactly that...a pipe dream...a fairy tale...and you risk all when you go after a fairy tale...and yo lose all when it turns out to be a pipe dream....

These are lessons I learned..the hard way...