A Clarification on "Shame on You..."

I am not a shrinking violet, and this is not an apology for what I wrote on Thursday. I stand by those words wholeheartedly, but I do need to clarify a few things as I feel my words stung some innocent friends quite deeply.

The responses have been very emotional and supportive (with the exception of a troll who I'll address at the end of this). The problem is the majority of those who reacted to my entry were not the people I was trying to reach, and for that, I do feel bad. Blame the cloud of Percocet that fogged my thought process when I wrote this or blame my lousy writing, the "Shame" entry was dedicated to the friends who promised to help me prior to the surgery. When four days passed after surgery, and only my mom's, Katie, and Rick had come by, I was hurt. I watched Tim grow more tired with each passing day from working and caring for me. I started thinking about the friends who'd offered to visit, cook, help me get cleaned up, and help with whatever was needed, and began calling on those friends to see if I could cash in on those offers. Most were just too busy, and some of you, well, you never even bothered to call me back.

Wow. Talk about sending a message loud and clear.

I was talking to a friend I unintentionally upset with my blog this morning. I apologized as I know she is super busy with her family and career, plus she lives an hour away so it's not exactly easy for her to just pop over for a visit. She was really cool about everything once I explained where I was coming from, but she also made an excellent point. She said (and I'm paraphrasing), we never know what life is going to hand us, and it could be any one of us laid up tomorrow. She was taking the message of my blog and using it as motivation to try to improve her communication with her loved ones.

It's the golden rule people - do unto others as you would have them do unto you. What more can I say? We as a society (myself included) get so wrapped up in what is happening around us that we're losing track of what counts...our relationships with our loved ones. If I take anything from this experience, it will be the resolve to be a better friend. One who picks up the phone more and emails less. It will be hard and I expect moments of complete failure, but I know I don't want any friend or loved one to ever feel as alone as I did when I wrote the "Shame" blog.

I hope this helps clear up any confusion on the matter, and if you are unsure, please call or write and I'll be happy to talk about this some more.

And lastly, a not-so-anonymous message to the "brave" troll who emailed me last night...

It takes a really courageous person to send an anonymous email to a stranger and make false judgments about them. It takes an even braver soul to neglect posting a return email address on that same email. A few words of advice before you spew your illiterate hatred on other blogs - reading first makes you a better troll.

You wrote:

are you kidding me! Think of your husband and not just yourself
you are a great person but think of the person you are married tand the wonderful person he is

--
Posted by Anonymous to Shall I use my powers for good instead of evil? at 11/17/2006 11:51:37 PM

First off, you are an idiot. Beyond the obvious spelling and grammatical errors in your pointless drivel above, if you read my shame blog at all, you'd know an entire paragraph is dedicated to my wonderful husband Tim, talking about his long thankless days serving as my caretaker, you fucktard!

Go back to the kiddie pool, troll.