Warning:  The following stream of consciousness contains unedited thoughts. I won’t be offended if you refrain from reading the rest.

Cue music:  David Bowie’s  Under Pressure.  Scratch that.

Cue music:  Cee Lo Greens’ Fu** You. The Deluxe version-unedited.  Yes, this will do nicely.

See what I mean?  You have been warned.  I am about to use the B word.

Yea.  That’s right.

Blame.  Super Blame.  It is ruining our very existence.  Getting in the way of the other B word.

Being.

A long time ago I gave up caring what anyone else said-chalking up my nonchalance to personal growth, getting a good life and exhaustion.  Who cares?Who really cares? But recently, when mud was thrown in my direction for a time without me slinging not one morsel of mud back-I had had enough.  Personal growth aside- I took it upon myself to call out the blame and call it out I did.  There are times, I think, you just have to tell people to zip it.  Shut up.  Stop talking.  Close the pie hole and go on about the business of being.

I was reminded how the whole blame cycle works-there I  was right smack dab in the cotton pick’in middle of the blame game. It caught me totally off guard and within a weeks time had escalated to levels of nastiness and pure pettiness I had truthfully not seen since high school. I was in the vortex of a triangle surrounded by three sides of one part disbelief, one part astonishment and one part embarrassment. I was embarrassed for the other players-carrying on and continuing the fight-the battle to save face and pretend. I played along for a while with as much dignity as I could muster-but then the game took on a nasty spin and took on a life of it’s own-fueled by small minds and blinding ambition.  Small young minds:  It is hard to tell young minds no matter how high the climb-the fall down is quick-and when going about burning bridges-they may just find themselves on the bridge that is indeed burning. Small young minds.  Then I remembered a simple rule that somehow got lost in it all the back and forth.  I removed myself from the game and got back to being.The triangle got taken down.  I got back to understanding it was not my job to call out someone’s bad behavior.  It  was my  job to take care of me and my B word. My. Own. Being. And here I was thinking everyone was playing by the same set of rules.  I was wrong.  In the ever increasing game of ‘shesaidyousaidthatIsaid’-(I blame reality TV)-someone, somewhere is thick in the middle of not taking responsibility for -well, not shutting their mouth-and then blaming someone, somewhere instead of fessing up to, well, not shutting their mouth.  Remember what mama always said?   If you don’t have something nice to say about someone, then don’t say anything at all. I have been silent many a time.  But more so, and without any hint of hesitation it falls back to the other old adage:  If you don’t have something nice to say about someone-then sit next to me-and tell four friends.