Journal 119 Do You Realize?

It is a song title, yes, I know, by the Flaming Lips, it's a song I dearly love.

I get it in my head when I 'think' or say the words "Do you realize?" in a sentence, or

if someone asks me a question that involves the phrase.

But today it popped out, unbidden, as I examined my own blog, my own writing, asking myself a question, and then, in this post: answering it.

Question: Do you realize, Ms. Carolyn, that sometimes, you can sound a bit insensitive? is the question I've asked.

Answer: A whole-hearted Yes.
My defence:

1) I'm an earth sign. Although I have a tender heart, and a truly compassionate side, I also have a rationality that can make things cloudy at times.

Like in my Saturday post.
I don't feel unabashed 'glee' that someone, someone that used to be a part of my life, (however long ago and unreal it now seems) is in the bin or what have you (there HAS to be a certain amount of 'broken telephone' to these reports, but the fact that there is so little privacy paid to this precious secret is breath-taking to me), but really, my tender heart and compassionate brain bleeds to the rational side of this thing called Karma, the spinning wheel of justice, however slowly the wheels seem to turn sometimes.

And it doesn't end there.

I don't really 'do' forgiveness. There's a certain amount of less-than-stellar behaviour I will tolerate, but I am quick to categorize even if it is only in my own head, and I am not quick to change these categories up.

Exaggeration, lies, half-truths...all blend into shades of dishonesty which for me equals well-earned wariness.

Verbal wreckage, story-telling, and a lack of respect for another's private world also cause me to raise my eyebrows in constertnation.

Sipid smiles that don't meet eyes, eyes that don't meet mine, and one-way conversations that involve me doing a whole lot of nodding and listening provoke in me hound-dog behaviour--I start to sniff around for what ISN'T there.

So yes.

I DO realize.