Gossip

I talk with people about people. I talk about my stuff, his stuff, and her stuff with people I trust and only because I'm trying to find the best way to help work through things.  I've been known to make ROTTEN decisions in my life, and paid for them exponentially.  So, sometimes, I just want an outside perspective.  Sometimes, I just want to vent.  Sometimes, I am enlisting help because my arms don't stretch that far or my efforts don't seem to be enough.  I don't know why, but I feel seriously responsible for putting my hands in.

The brilliant news is, others don't.  Apparently, people can talk all about me, my husband, my kids and our problems ALL day (yes.  we ARE that entertaining.) and never lift a finger.  Now, I should digress from this topic to say there are people in my life that are all-hands-on-deck. In fact, they are some of the very people that participate with me in the process of the first paragraph.  There are people that I've shoved right on in to the back of my closet, forcing them to rub shoulders with the skeletons, and know for themselves just how badly it smells in there -- who have come out smiling and loving me all the more.  But, there are the others. 

Hooray.

Have you ever justified people not getting involved in your life because they didn't know there was a good reason to?  Today, I get to face the fact that not all people function the way that I do and hope that it isn't because there is an invisible neon sign on my front lawn blaring out "Quarantine:  This home is spiritually putrid.  Enter at your own risk." 

Won't you be my neighbor?