Which would you prefer?

Truth be told...When the chips are down, do you honestly want your friend to have your back? Do you want their actions to match their words, no matter what, or do you want them to simply say the words?

I was informed this morning that I can be *scary*. Isn't that nice? People fear me. I've known that for a while. It isn't exactly news to me. I asked what it is about me that's so frightening.

People seem to fear me, because I won't pull a punch, and I have no compunctions about doing the difficult thing when the chips are down. If you tell me you're in the rock and hard place position and can't make the decision, I can make the hard choice. Even when it sucks. I can be the asshole. Even when it costs me a friend, if in the end, it means that someone I love or care about ends up standing on their own two feet, in one piece and happy, I can be the one who ends up alone if they end up okay.

So that makes me scary? I won't apologize for that. And I had to try to articulate that. I had to sit and try to make sense of it in a way for someone else to understand. Yes, I am domineering. Yes, I have a very weird set of personal standards.

But when it comes right down to it, who do *you* want at your back? Do you really want the friend who mouths the right words about how much they care about you? Or do you want the friend who will step up, and actually *do* something that can help you, even if it means that they end up bleeding and bruised, and you end up still standing? Because at the end of the day, that's who I am. I'm the person who will be laying on the floor bleeding, while you're in one piece. And you know what? I am alright with that.

It has cost me more friends than I can count over the years. It has cost me people I still love. It has cost me things I try very hard not to think about, and it has caused me to have self-defense mechanisms like no other. But it has also made me who I am, and made me incredibly strong.

I can hold my head up and respect myself. I can respect the decisions I made. I can look at the situations I was in and the end results and the places those people are in now, because of decisions I made, and I can smile at the lives they made because of things I did. That's enough for me. And they hate me. And that's okay.