Have you ever been on a road trip? You're driving along, enjoying the scenery, listening to your favorite song on the radio, then WABAAM, road kill.  It fills your car with an unmistakable odor and you can't escape. You wish you had seen it before hand, so you could hold your breath. It lingers for miles past the point of smell-pact. Trust me. I know you know the smell. I have been avoiding a lovely smelling rodent on Route 60 for the last week!

Relationships are the same way. When we start out, all we see are the happy, fun, times. We get blinded by how we believe our relationship with a person should be, and ignore the awful odor seeping from their pores. For some people, it is a gradual realization. For others, they just always knew.When I say relationships, I do not mean necessarily romantic ones. For me, my road kill relationships were various family members. When I let them go, it wasn't to be vindictive. It wasn't for any reason other than I needed inner peace, and I couldn't handle it anymore. My life needed some serious air freshener to remove the lingerings of my journey's road kill.

If being around a person makes you feel bad about yourself, if hearing about them makes your skin twitch, if the mere thought of them makes your skin boil, you might have road kill relationships. It's hard to maintain these relationships and it isn't healthy. I have went to extremes to get away from mine. I formed a new Facebook and preemptively blocked everyone who caused more stress than pleasure. I changed my number. I moved. It may seem extreme, but for me? For me it was a necessity. I couldn't live my life being compared to others anymore. I couldn't continue to be sucked in to the immature drama any more. I finally woke up and decided to love my life for me.

Even though I dropped these relationships, I do not wish anything bad to those people I have left behind. When you leave these relationships, the key to happiness is leaving the negativity these relationships caused, behind as well. Don't let the negativity of your past determine your future. Don't give your past that control, ever. Leaving the negativity with the relationship frees you to build and enjoy a life for you.

What are "road kill" relationships in your life? How do you plan to tackle them? Do you have suggestions for others, or would you like suggestions? Feel free to leave a comment!

I met my step-dad over fourteen years ago. My mom and he were set up on a blind date. It was mom's first date after leaving my birth-father. He took mom out for her birthday, and mom being the-ahem- bull-headed woman she is, said he could only take her out if he took me too. He agreed and we ended up going to a sea-food restaurant. then putt-putt. Though i absolutely  beasted at putt-putt with the highest score of the night, I don't think I spoke two words to him on the whole date.

He ordered cheese sticks at the restaurant, so of course I liked him. However, I still would not talk to him. All questions and comments from this chick-a-dee were sent strictly through my mother. It would have been hard to talk to the poor man-even if I wanted to- since I wouldn't even look at him! I sat with my back to him the whole meal. Mom had to remind me of his name when we went to the bathroom one time. His name brought about a hardcore giggle fit.

From that date on, he made sure I was included in everything possible and he made sure he was there for all events in my life possible. He never missed a cheering event if he did not have to work and he never missed a band performance in seven years unless he was working or ill. I can't begin to imagine to obscene amounts of band candy the man bought over the years. He watched me attempt a pageant. He dealt with my teenage drama and all of the crazy that went with it. He was there for all of the things that were important to me and supported me the best he could. He even tried to make up for the broken promises and down right hurtful things my birth-father managed to say and do.

Simply, he was and is my dad and he didn't have to be. It is not lost on me that he had a choice. That, at any point in the last 14 years, he could have thrown his hands up and walked away. I wasn't his responsibility, but he made me one. He could have chosen the route my birth-father did, but he didn't. Instead, he chose to love and encourage me in life. When you get down to it, isn't that what a dad is? I mean, this man, who started out as a complete stranger, who I attmitedly put through hell at times, gave me something DNA couldn't. My dad.