I'm not done.

I read everything I could find on Blogger Help and it looks like it's Google+ stuff - which I never linked to - that's going away. So, whatever. I'm going to assume Blogger would post something on their login page if they were ending the service altogether.

Two epiphanies I had this morning (Yes, I'm tired, my brain has been far too active for far too early):

1. It's probably better to be alone on Valentine's Day than to have a partner, expect something, and not get anything. Rarely do romantic gestures live up to what you see in the movies, and some people either forget, or decide they're "too busy,*" or kind of do it halfway, and that's probably more a disappointment then not expecting anything and not getting anything.

Also, I was irritated to see the (women) newsreaders on one of the semi-local channels jokingly "reminding" the (man) weather forecaster that he needed to get something for his wife. I GET that that's seen as "fun newsroom banter" but it's just another bit of the insidious expectations heaped on (very often women) people to make sure other people are taking care of their loved-ones. I think it would stick in my throat if I were expected to remind one of my male colleagues to buy something for his wife or partner.

(*And this is me being me, but I would take a romantic partner being "too busy" to even get a card or something for me as evidence that he didn't really care that much, and, in the bad old phrase, "wasn't that in to " me. One of the things that matters to me is someone being willing to go to a little effort. And it wouldn't have to be an expensive purchased card - just a nice greeting written on a 3 x 5 card or a doodle or something would do it)

2. Another, sadder thing I realized: if you are generally an agreeable person ESPECIALLY if you have relatively little money or power, no one has any investment in your happiness.

Something was said last night; it's been said before and it's something I always find distasteful, but - the idea being "well, we need to keep the big donors happy" with the implication that some of the recent new people don't have a lot of money, and therefore their opinions in matters count less. And that bothers me a lot.

I mean, in a business, it might not, so much. Or in politics, I'm cynical enough to believe that it's SOP. But in a church it feels wrong.

I don't deny that money is and has always been a problem. But reducing it to "who has value because of what they donate" is wrong. And really, if it comes down to that? If our value is perceived in terms of how much we give? I'm done. I'm out. I'm sorry. I said I'd never leave the church but that might be the thing that does it. If people are going to take the one sacred thing and pervert it and decide Mammon is more important....well, forget it. Or maybe I find another place to go. I don't know.

But yeah. One thing I am sick and sad about is that because I am (a) generally agreeable and I care about other people's happiness and opinions and (b) I have little power, influence, or money, nobody seemingly has any investment in caring whether I'm happy or not.

Oh, I get that it's better to be of service and all that. And I hate it when someone is "that person" (you know, the person who goes "I want to speak to your manager" and stuff when it's some minor thing that's not right and it's not the fault of the person serving them). But once in a while it would be nice for me to feel like people saw me as more than just the person who does all these things for them. if they realized that some times I am unhappy but I am not vocal about it and also because I've been taught that it's easier to accept my own disappointment than the disappointment of others.That I find it easier to yield than fight, and because of that, I often feel taken advantage of.

I don't know. I think of my mother shaking her head sadly and saying "I raised you kids to be too NICE" after my brother figuratively got run over at school by a louder meaner kid. And I think of the thing I said the other day - that maybe I go off and do birthday-celebration type things alone NOT because I'm a loser, but because it's really the only way I can guarantee for myself the person I'm with won't go, "Oh. Barbecue? But I had barbecue two days last week....I really don't want barbecue" and I might end up sighing and going "Okay, fine, we'll go to the Mexican place instead" when I really don't WANT Mexican. Yes, even on my birthday.


I dunno. I have told myself that when I get home this afternoon I am gonna start rage-cleaning. One of the reasons I've been unhappy recently is that my house is a terrible mess and I worry when it's a mess because (people-pleaser again) if I got sick or hurt and someone would have to come over, I KNOW what they would say behind my back, because I've heard what some people said behind other people's backs about their messy houses. (These being people who have hired help to clean. I don't, mainly because I'm very private and don't want someone else moving my stuff around, but also because I'd rather spend that money on other things and I don't have an unlimited budget). And I have stuff that needs to be put away.