The Lover archetype is constellating in me.

[Tobin S.]

Every day on my way to work I stop in a truck stop and load up on my caffeinated products for the night. There's a young woman in there who works the register at that time of day. Every day she says to me, "Have a blessed day," as she hands me my bagged up stuff.

I am not a Christian, and after years of being assailed by evangelicals in my youth at my dad's church I go on the defensive when someone gets all Christian on me. It became my natural response. I've never said anything to the young woman about it, but I usually don't respond to, "Have a blessed day."

But today as I approached the counter and I saw her there, something just loosened up in me and a part of that old defense mechanism bit the dust. I told her, "You, too."

.

.

.

I just can't hate anymore, and I've come to loathe competition. I just want to smile at everybody, give them a big old hug, and share a doobie. Okay, I can't do the pot, but I'm as close to getting high as you can get without drugs. I'm tired of fighting...fighting with myself. It's such a relief to accept peace into your state of mind, and along with that comes love.

The past few years have been such a struggle and have been filled with worry. I have tried my hardest to make a good life for me and my wife. As you guys know, I've recently been considering grad school in an attempt to make things better for us. But now it looks like just another fight. My normal work week is 52 hours and I've put in 63 hours a week over the past month. It would probably be suicidal to attempt grad school with that kind of work schedule.

I'm tired of swimming upstream. I just want to make my paycheck and come home to be with my love. Peace, y'all.

[rug]

1. Congratulations, Tobin.

[PufPuf23]

2. "I just can't hate anymore, and I've come to loathe competition."

I hear you Tobin.

Best to you.

[starshine00]

5. I am making some changes in my life to avoid this emotion.

I am leaving my living situation as soon as possible because of the family dynamics that keep me angry all the time.

And I am reading a book on boundaries after I let a rotten human being into my life via the internet, that caused me a terrible amount of pain. I don't think it was done 'íntentionally', per se, I just think this person is a sociopath and doesn't have the obstacle of a human conscience nagging them when they are doing wrong. However something in my self-defense system malfunctioned hugely with this "person" (they don't function like a normal human being so it is weird to call them that). the end result was that I have had months upon months of pain and anger and hurt to a depth that I have not experienced in a very long time, and then on top of that I have been angry at myself because I let it happen, so I have been repressing the feelings and not wanting to admit to myself how deeply I was hurt and conned and bamboozled by this rotten stinking piece of shit pile of human feces. They are an mma fighter so maybe I should have seen it coming since so many of them apparently have sociopathic tendencies. I just don't know. But it was a massive malfunction that ended up in terrible heartbreak and really jaded my entire outlook on humanity for a long time. It is finally clearing out of my psyche...at first I needed to even accept that scum like this walk on the earth looking like normal humans and just accepting that took months. But then, the end result is that I am determined to never let anyone this sick and evil into my life ever again, because I NEVER want to feel this intensely negative about any one human being ever again. I never want to have these kinds of emotions in my life ever again, EVER.

[cwydro]

3. People say that all the time here.

They mean it in a nice way. I always say thanks and you too.

[irisblue]

4. peace out Tobin

[starshine00]

6. you can always just respond with "inshallah" (god willing)

turnabout is fair play

[blue neen]

7. I think that the term "blessed" is actually a lovely word.

It usually does have a religious connotation, but it doesn't necessarily have to.

Feeling blessed could definitely align with accepting peace into your state of mind. These can be spiritual to you without being "Christian".....you know just a part of the personal, wonderful, loving spirit of Tobin.

[mnhtnbb]

8. You could use the phrase you chose to end your OP offering "Peace, y'all" to us at DU

and simply say to her, "peace" or "peace be with you".