bewildered

Yesterday I was having a hard time with the normal politics that happen in a corporate environment. For the first 3 years I fought against playing the game and it got me nowhere. So I've accepted the fact that I have to be fake (a thing I despise) and play the game if I want to get ahead. Some days I'm better at it than others and yesterday wasn't one of those days.

So I called a co-worker that understands and asked if he was available for lunch. He was. There are certain people you click with, people that come into your life at various times that give you exactly what you need while you give them exactly what they need. He is that type of person. I think we remind each other that there are far more important things in life than kissing ass in work. So we always have great conversations. When he's having a bad work day, he calls me.

We walked over to the new pizza place across the street from work - Flatbread. We had a great time talking about not so great stuff. Sometimes you just need to feel like you're understood. :) I find it amazing that there are so many more mediums for communication these days, but we actually communicate less.

After work I managed to weed wack the rest of the uber tall lawn. Of course it's time for it to be cut again, but what else is new. I saw my neighbor outside while sweating and figured I'd chat with her afterwards but by the time I was done, she had gone back inside. So I called her to catch up, see what was new, and just say hello.

The thing that has me bewildered is men...or marriage...or society, I can't tell. My friend from work isn't in a good marriage but doesn't know what to do because he has children. My neighbor's nephew is in an even more screwed up marriage but doesn't know what to do because he has children. In one day I got two stories about men trapped in loveless marriages, desperately trying to find a way out without ruining their kids lives.

I've always believed that marriage is what you make it. It might be a naive view, but I thought that if two people wanted it bad enough, anything was possible. So now I'm left to wonder, what happens when only one person wants it bad enough? I thought when I got married, my partner would have the same idea about marriage and it would work. But, in this day and age, that really isn't a realistic viewpoint - something I grudgingly admit to being logical conclusion with plenty of failed marriages as my statistical analysis.

So now I'm forced to think of reality and leave my little idea of marriage out in the open to wither and potentially die. I wonder if marriage ruins the relationship. I wonder if having kids ruins the relationship. I wonder if people are building relationships on things that a marriage would never survive on and they're causing they're own problems. Having never been married, I wonder about these things.

The thing I wonder the most about is the kids. When all is said and done, the marriage gone, the love beaten into a pulp never to rise again, what happens with the kids. Does one's brain shut off to logic because of the emotions? Is it because I'm outside looking in that I know calling the other parent names is a bad thing? I can't seem to figure out how people can use their children as tools to hurt their former partner. Can't they see what it does to the kids? In a time when they need more stability than ever before? I don't know.

I do know I'm saddened by the loss of marriages lasting through good times and bad. I'm bewildered how people can deliberately try to hurt a person they used to care for by using their kids. I'm unsure of where this new revelation leaves me and my thoughts. Too much to think about, too much to digest. I just don't know.

D