Life, Love, and Sayings That I Live By

We all have sayings that we grew up with or picked up along the way. I have five that somehow have found their way into my life.

Each time something happens, I am drawn back to them.   They bring clarity to my life or what is happening at that moment.

No matter how much we want to live with rose-colored glasses, sooner or later, those saying / proverbs will resonate.

“Lies have short legs.”

My grandmother used to say this. I believe it was one of her favorite sayings.

I remember her explaining this metaphor: Look how far a big dog can run with longer legs compared to a small dog with shorter legs. The mental picture was worth a thousand words.

When you tell a lie or are fed a lie, sooner or later, the truth will come out. Usually sooner, as lies are hard to keep in line and like short legs, they cannot run far.

You can almost spot a liar a mile away as they have most of the same characteristics, or at least those are the ones that I have noticed more often.

• Of course, they swear up and down that they are innocent and get mad, enraged even. “How dare you accuse of such??” is part of their deliberation tactic to you.
• Trying to cover his/her behind.
• Hate that you discover what they were hiding and get mad at you and the whole world.
• Work their wording in such a manner that you question yourself, and suddenly, you become the bad guy and then the poor victim that everyone is out to get.
• They ask you to repeat yourself – another great way to buy time so they can come up with more nonsense to feed you and everyone around. You can even see them searching for clues to see what you know.

You know the types, right? 

When you know someone, you can tell by their voice, pre-disposition, down to the body language.

I knew someone who, as soon as they were ready to give you a fat juicy lie, their voice went up an octave and completely changed their delivery. The nose twinged, the shoulders moved up and down, and the head went back.

Quite funny as it was a perfectly synchronized routine.

I love this one, my favorite. I usually sit back, cross my arms, and wait for the lie to come on. Like a precision laser cutter, sure enough, the lie lands in the open air for all to enjoy.

“Do not make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.”

When I first read this quote from Maya Angelou, I cried. This cuts deep with me.

With life up-evil, we all try to find some sobriety, even though we may lie to ourselves because we want this perfect synergy.

I never believed I could place myself in the position to become an option to someone. But I allowed it. I allowed someone who did not value me to be so important in my life.

The fault was mine. It is surreal to me that one can see all that is in front of itself and still believe it is not.  Taking life as a mirage in the desert sand.

The trust was already obliterated, and somehow they wrapped you again and took you into their insecurities’ turmoil.  Allowing them to slowly change who you became, the person that took years to put back together, grew, and had come to peace with life. The subtleness of their action is unobtrusive.

This insatiable hate and disdain resonate with the condescending and downright abusive way they talk when they want to be victims to get sympathy. That always has been their way.

You would think that you could see it coming after so many years. However, when the heart meddles with your head, let’s face it, you are sitting on the losing end.

As a result, those words of wisdom keep coming back and back. Each time stronger and stronger. Each time makes more sense. Each time, shedding light on a picture that is shattered will never be put back together, no matter how much you try.

“Better the devil you know than the devil you do not know.”

As humans, we all fear the unknown no matter how hard we try, our insecurities or fears are winning this one. But sometimes you have no choice. Years ago, I was faced with this.

A cheating husband and a monster of a married mistress who wanted me dead and to live my life. I am not exaggerating; she wanted it all and would have stopped at nothing to get it.

Another one with so many lies up their sleeves and the attitude of hell once you question them. And of course, they are the poor angels that are wrongly accused. How dare we?

I had to decide to take a leap of faith. No time to linger on all the pros and cons. The writing was on the wall. They wanted it all, and after a substantial number of years married, I was supposed to walk away with nothing and give more.

Fears lived within me for weeks. What am I going to do? Leave it all? Leave this wonderful life, at least what I thought was a wonderful life with my rose-colored glasses, that we had created because someone wants it? 

Jump feet first. I did.

I am here to tell you how scary and hurtful and painful it is; you will be ok. The other side is not as scary as we think, as we are the masters of our destinies.

How we created and lived the “devil that we know” we can recreate it again, and better this time, with the “devil we do not know”. 

This is no time to stagnate in the comfort that we know.

If you look at it from that perspective, it is a brand new page of our life that we get to rewrite. That is the silver lining for all the hell we go thru to get there.

“The grass is always greener on the other side because it is fertilized with manure.”

One of my favorites. This can fit so many aspects of our life, whether business or personal. If something is too good to be true, beware.

Making changes is difficult, but sometimes we are blinded by the bells and whistles or lust.

We all have seen relationships and families destroyed by the selfishness of an external relationship that was so grandiose the need to leave everyone behind was compelling, to end up discovering that all the fluffy grass was nothing more than thin air.

All the hype, the lies finally coming up to the surface, leaving you with a massive pile of manure in your hands.

“Forgive, maybe. Forget, never”

I was 12 years old when I first heard this one. I was in my music class and wrote it down on the casing of my music recorder. I still have it.

I am French, and we see things in a different light sometimes. We are not vindictive. We come more from the approach of the laissez-faire world.

Until you do something to us to hurt us, then all the walls go up. We do not want bad to happen to you or anyone. Karma, after all, is not something we want to deal with. We do not want to be around you any longer.

Forgiveness is not something that we give easily. We may not forgive the pain, although we forgive the actions. You have been hurt, and that is not a laughing matter. Not something that you sweep under the rug because they are your family, did not mean to, did not know what they were doing, and on and on with the verbal vomit you give yourself to justify your fear of cutting the cord.

Of course, there are all levels of hurt. I am only referring to the bruised ego here. The emotional hurt. The heart hurt.

Meanwhile, I have learned

is that if you forgive your walls are coming down, you are more open and accessible and yet more exposed, more vulnerable. However, NEVER forget.

In my own life experience, the persons I have given a second chance forgave and forgot most of what they have done, bammmh!!! they are the ones hurting you again each time they get the opportunity to.

So why am I telling you all this? Sometimes in life, we need to see in writing what we feel, our emotions. Our inner being presents all that is there to come out, sort out and dispose of.

Maybe nothing will resonate with you, but maybe something small can be what you need to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It sure has been for me.

xoxo

Giangi