An Eye-Opening Revelation.

I have an amazing friend. He has literally stood by my side, no matter what, from the moment our friendship began. I love this man. He is a part of me, in a way. We have THAT kind of connection. Now, I won't be shelling out his information, but he will be mentioned a lot. He is who I thank for a lot of my strength, my determination, my motivation. He is an important part of my life.

After an ex-boyfriend discovered that he was in my life, vengeance was steadfast. He used every outlet possible to try to hurt me. I really don't know what his intentions were. Maybe he wanted me to feel bad for not staying with him. Maybe he wanted to guilt me into being with him again. All he did was cost himself all respect I had for him. How? He started bad-mouthing my best friend. Just throwing out lie after lie after lie. Things that I, with no doubt, knew were not true. This hurt me. And here's why: He was saying things about someone that he knew nothing about.

Of course I defended him. My EX was never around this person, he didn't see the things he did, hear the things he said, experience things with him. So, who was HE to start saying these things about him? All of a sudden, it clicked.

See, I am a woman. A very flawed one at that. I have had times in my life where I said things about other people because they were things someone else had told me, things I believed to be true. But, the only truth was that I had no clue. All of a sudden, I realized how those things could hurt.

From that moment on, unless I experienced something first-hand, I didn't put much stock in it. I felt the need to send out numerous apologies to every single person I had blindly judged. There were women whose marriages I questioned, because of a simple slip of tongue that they had an argument. Mother's who I referred to as "unfit" because they did not have the same beliefs as me. And many, many more examples. It's not right.

And it took me experiencing someone else doing that to someone I really cared about. That's what's so sad about it. It shouldn't have taken that long, or that type of situation to give me this epiphany. 

I don't care who you are. I don't care where you've been. I don't care what you've seen. Just please, don't make the same mistakes I have made for so long. Stop laying judgments down on people you don't know. Stop the judgments, period. Don't make assumptions about people. Not that it's your business, to be blunt, but should you feel the need to have details on an other person's life, I'd assume the best person to ask would be them.