Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged!

I think that I saw prostitutes and a pimp in Chapel Hill last night. I am not entirely sure, but I am pretty confident that this is what I was seeing. I watch two very petite women, dressed very scantily, walking by a bunch of men... obviously flirting with any male that went by... and another male walking very close behind them, watching their every move. Two men approached the women, the other man stood back and then the five of them walked down the street together and disappeared into a bar on Franklin Street. In my head, this went on for about 10 minutes, but in reality, it was about a minute and a half.

Anyhow...

When Lil'EB and I were at her open mic last night, some guy approached me asking how to get her to play at his place of business. He owns a "headshop". It's funny how your perspective changes as you get older and at one time you would have thought that this was cool. As I was once a huge supporter of the local headshop in Connecticut. Yeah, I had a bong and a pipe (or two). I had a bad habit (or three). Happily, I am one that has outgrown these hobbies. I was borderline offended that he wanted to drag Lil' down to this level. (Yes, I am a completely over-protective Lil'.)

I have come to realize that I am an extremely judgemental person. I think that I have denied being so for a really long time. But lately, I have noticed that I am quick to judge others. I am making a conscious effort to stop this. (No, this will not result in my parting with any more money.)

I have a plethora of things in my past that I am not proud of. I have them all swimming around in my head just sucking up brain cells. I have no place to put them. They are just there. I had thought of starting an anonymous blog, just so that I could get these "secrets" out there in the world, on the off-chance that someone might read it and tell me that I am a crappy person for doing what was done. Then I could get over it. Then someone would know. Then someone would react. Then someone would judge me.

Why don't you judge for yourselves what is right?~Luke 12:57

As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.~John 12:47

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.~Romans 2:1

I think that as human beings we need judgement. We claim to not want judgement, but at the same time we do things to encourage it. We wear low-cut tops to show off our boobs, or short skirts to show off our legs, or vocalize opinions that are sure to get a reaction. Is this human nature... Needing a reaction to everything that we do??

I try to not have regrets for things that have transpired. They are done. I have done them. I do not have the time travel machine to go back and make them disappear from reality. I try to just use these things as really aggressive life lessons. These are the things that made me who I am today. I have to say that I am not a half-bad person.

I was with two of my favorite people on the planet this weekend, and it was like my worlds were melding together. It's a strange feeling. Bon knows how I grew up, she was part of it. She saw the anger and aggression. She saw the depression, the mistakes, the heartache. She witnessed, first-hand, the abuse that occurred in my everyday life... She is my soul sister. Bon knows everything there is to know about me, right down to my soul. We made our mistakes (sometimes we made them together). But, I don't think that she gets how I live now. I think that she has a hard time with the "Me and God" thing, as she saw the beginning of the atheism decade in my life... but we have both grown and changed. It just took us a really long time to do this.

Lil' knows me now. I don't think that I can ever explain to her who I was when I was her age. I realized this weekend that every once in a while I let an incling of my past sneak up on me and come to life... and I wonder what Lil' would think of these events, or of me, if she had witnessed them while they transpired.

I don't embarrass very easily, but these thoughts kill me inside.

Asleep is the rose, in tired innocence... dreaming time away.
Secure in the comfort of slumbers faint embrace.
Blissfully ignorant, unaware of the imminence...
Recurring memories emerge from the deep... of old secrets unforgotten sleep.
They sink beneath the surface just long enough for you to breathe.
Then return to choke you when you wake up alone.
Shredded inside... there's one place left to turn.
A long-term problem, a temporary remedy,
but f*ck it all anyway you can pretend to be happy.
So many years of pathetic lies,
empty promises and unfulfilled dreams are scattered like dust into the winds.
Looking for the sun that eclipsed behind black feathered wings.
Tomorrow never comes, there was only ever one day... but now it's too late.
~Anathema