Poeple Help Create Humanity

    I think we can all agree that we are who we have become  has a lot to do with the people that have been a part of our lives. As children we have less control of whom we have in our lives, the control in this situation is generally more of the choice of our parents or guardians. They set up play dates that we may or may not request. The people in our lives end up there without us generally choosing, sometimes without us actually wanting it. As we get older we are generally surrounded by peers in school. We have less opportunity to interact with people outside of this group due to our location and lack of mobility... we still rely on our parents to take us places. We grow older and gain independence. We learn to drive and can expand our social circles. If we are fortunate enough we may go to college, expanding our potential social circles to the entire student body, perhaps even some faculty, although most of us restrict our friend group to those that we have classes with, dorm with, join clubs with, or have some other thing in common. We most likely miss out on some great social interactions because of the restrictions that manifest. This particular entry is not about what we've missed out on, though. It's about what we have experienced and how it has shaped us.
    Every interaction we have helps to shape who we become. We meet people and learn things. We learn about them, their interests, the knowledge that they have is shared with us and we grow. We gather information about what we like and do not like, and we use that information to help us determine what we'd like to have and do in the future. Some of us quickly realize what we like and attempt to continue experiencing things that fall into that category. Others of us simply start to notice things that we don't like, note the things we do, and attempt to continue to gather more information through more experiences. I'm generally in the second group. I find things I like and don't like, avoid things I know I don't like (not always very successfully), but most of my focus is set on finding new experiences and meeting new people so that I can keep finding out what I like or do not enjoy, so that I can continue growing and learning forever! Stagnation is frightening to me, so I would rather keep doing new things than stick to something comfortable.
     Of course, as a part of this process people come in and out of our lives. So often the loss of a person can be painful or unpleasant, like in the event of a break up or death. When we begin to associate this extreme negative feeling with the individual that has left our life many of us wish that we could remove all memory of the person from our minds. People wish for an Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind situation. Unfortunately I can't fully understand this. Sure, it can be painful to be reminded of a person once they have left our lives, especially if it was a nonconsensual parting. Still, why would we want to remove a person from memory? At one point we enjoyed their company, they have helped us to become who we are today. Unless you are truly unhappy with whom you have become there is no need to try and forget these people. Furthermore, if you are unhappy with the person you have become, you cannot blame this on others. Taking responsibility for the person you are is a necessary part of maturing.
    To personalize this issue I will mention a few specifics. I invited my ex to my graduation a year ago even though we were no longer together. He helped me get to where I am, being somewhat supportive, encouraging me to pursue my dreams to an extent. Our ending even helped me to a point. By realizing that our relationship would not work out, for whatever reason, I was pushed to be more independent and to find myself, find what I wanted out of life and go after it. Over the years my ex and I have been forced farther and farther apart, and now we do not even speak. I hear he is expecting a child. He will be a loving father and I have only the best wishes for he and his girlfriend. My only wish for myself in that situation is for him to know how much hope I have for him to find happiness, especially given the happiness that his role in my life has helped me to find the same.
    Now, I am sure that anyone who has read this blog from the beginning would be interested in how I feel about the individual that inspired the creation of this blog. There is a person that I gave so much to, that my family opened their home and their hearts to, that I invested time, energy and money into with the only return being a painful, borderline cruel slap in the face. This individual left with hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of dollars of money that she owed (which adds to the irony, since we took her in so she could pay off some of the debt that she felt so overwhelmed by) to me and my family. She walked out of our lives with not so much as a "thank you" or a "goodbye" after we had struggled to give her everything she needed to be comfortable and start her life the way she wanted it. All of this after being in my life for 18 years. She claimed that she felt like we were the family she wished she had, and that I was the best friend she ever could have hoped for. She filled my world with lies and deceit, taking everything she could and giving nothing but pain in return. So wouldn't I want to erase this person from my memory completely?
    Parts of me would love to have no memory of her at all. She gave my faith in humanity a huge blow. I couldn't understand how someone could be so incredibly thankless and inconsiderate, especially with people continually handing her what she wanted, bending over backwards to try and give her what she wanted because they felt bad for her, although all of the sympathy she built for herself was a lie as well. This person has made themselves almost the worst person I've ever known in my head. Every time I hear about her hurting someone else I just shake my head, almost wishing I could have warned them, but I know it's not my place by any means to interfere with other people's relationships. Also, people tried to warn me that she was a liar and not to be trusted, not to mention that I watched her talk about people behind their backs while they helped her on such a regular basis. In retrospect, anything that happened was my own fault. I take responsibility for being so giving and getting walked on. I could have, or should have, been more guarded and kept myself safe, but I chose not to. I have been fortunate enough to learn from this situation.
    The take home message? I know that relationships are hard. I recognize that after these relationships end we can learn from them much better than when we are in them. Good or bad, long or short, ended or not, we are shaped by the people we have interactions with. Some people make us happy and build us up, others make us doubt our judgement and bring us down, occasionally even hurting our faith in humanity. Even with all of this, we have to recognize our own part of this process. We can't blame other people for our lives and how they end up.
   

Responsibility is something we try to teach children, but so many adults still don't grasp the concept. We are exactly what we are, we've become so by our own choices, even if the only choice we had control over was how we react.