BEHIND MY QUIET

I've been a bit quiet lately, I know.

Some of that is just busyness.  I finally started as a leader with Weight Watchers and have been leading my own meeting, slowly figuring out what I'm doing and improving a little bit each week.  I've been making running a priority again. I've been trying to drastically reorganize and declutter my house, which has taken a big chunk of each day...  plus just a lot of kid-related things that have needed my attention.

But too...  I've had some things on my mind that I just haven't wanted to talk about.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine made a unilateral decision that concerned me. I wasn't asked or consulted... it was just made.  Initially, I was pretty unhappy about it... but I figured that I'd see how it played out. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as I thought. But... as time has marched on, the decision has proved to be about as awful as I'd anticipated, with huge negative impact on the quality of our friendship. That's hurt.

But what I've come to realize lately is that I'm just not okay with that.

A funny thing happened to me over the course of the changes in my body over the last two years. I'm different. I have stronger belief in my own worth.  And it's easy to simplify that...  to say that I feel more worthy because I look better.  But it isn't just that.

Somewhere in the journey, you have to come face to face with the ways in which you've considered yourself unworthy and treated yourself as unworthy, and they aren't just because you're overweight.  There's a cultural bias, for sure, that is wrapped up in that. But you also realize that you have certain beliefs about yourself...  like that it's selfish to spend more on fresh produce for yourself because you're unworthy of it. Or that the hour you take for exercise each day could easily be spent on something else -- like your family or your job or the upkeep of your house -- and that you're wrong for spending it on yourself.

You have to come face to face with that and spin it on its head to get to the other side -- where you start to believe that it is okay to do those things because you are worthy.  Somewhere in the journey, you begin to see yourself differently. You begin to see your own self-worth. You grow in confidence. You grow in self-respect.

A dear friend of mine, who is a high school teacher, shared a letter with me recently that she received from one of her students. The young girl had been able to hold her own in a debate with a smart older boy because of some of the things they had learned in class, and the girl was thanking my friend for her part in that.  As the girl wrote, she talked about the impact that had made on her... how she always second-guessed herself, always believed that the things she thought were true were probably wrong because how could she be smart enough to be right?

It made me cry.  It made me cry and want to hug that little girl...  Partly because my heart broke for her, but also because I understood.  I understood those feelings. How many times have I doubted my own judgment because I felt too gullible, too uninformed, too willing to believe what people told me? How often have I looked to other people for what to believe because how could I be right?

What I've begun to realize is that I'm a lot smarter than I've given myself credit for. I'm worth more than I've believed.

I can't choose how other people treat me, how much value they give me.  But I can choose whether I allow myself to stay in a situation where there is such discrepancy.

Because I can see now that I'm worth more.

PLEASE TELL ME

(A snippet of a song I wrote this morning...)

The little white lies you told me, they hang between us now

Like a cobweb spun across an old doorframe.

They seep inside and taint us, and I can’t seem to find my smile

Just want to find somebody else to blame.

We tried so hard to fix this, together you and I

This broken thing that we had thought was lost

But I don’t know what to do now and I don’t know what I can say

I’m just not sure it’s still worth what it costs.

So please tell me you can say the words I need to hear

I don’t want to turn from you and walk away

But we’re standing at the crossroads and I wish that you could see 

How hard it hurts me every time I stay.

BURNED BRIDGES AND THE COLORS OF YOUR ENDINGS

I am a girl who, at least in relationships, likes Black and White.

I want to know where we stand. I want to know if we're okay or if we're not.

If we're not, I want to lay all our chips on the table and fight out the things that are broken until they're not broken anymore.

Or if they can't be fixed, I want to know that too. I don't want to go on wondering if things can ever be okay again or not. I want to know.

I want to know why.

And if we decide that things can't be okay, I want to shut the door. I want to end the chapter and our story... I want to know that it's okay to start a new one.

I guess they call that closure.

But sometimes I guess that I need to learn that it's not a bad thing if doors don't close all the way. It's okay to leave them open a little just in case it's a story that isn't really ended yet. It's okay to not know what happened, and it's okay to simply let the ending be.

It's okay to be hurt and it's okay to be mad and it's okay to be upset about the things that don't feel fair. You aren't wrong to feel those things, and don't let people tell you that you are.

But just because all those things are true... it doesn't mean that you have to burn your bridges.  Just let it be...  maybe you cross that bridge again some day. Maybe you don't.  But... this way, at least you can if you decide that you want to.

Not every ending has to be Black and White...  sometimes they can be a little Grey.

THURSDAY TALES: BAD BLOOD

I scanned the lunchroom and my heart sank.  One seat in the whole place... and it was across from her. The girl who had somehow become something like an arch-nemesis.

I didn't hate her... there was just bad blood. Old bickerings, old insults.  They still hung in my mind, and maybe they still hung in hers. But it was either there or in the pouring rain outside. What choice did I have?

Practically tiptoeing up to the chair, I slid into it quietly -- like if I didn't make a sound, she wouldn't notice that I was there. I kept my eyes downcast... but the sigh of disgust that blew my way let me know that my ruse was up. Our eyes met and I mumbled, "Sorry."

We sat there in uncomfortable silence as I carefully laid out my lunch...  Avoided looking at each other, avoided speaking to each other.

Finally, I blurted out, "Look, can we start over? This is silly..."

She looked at me a long time, and then shrugged, "Yeah, sure, whatever."

Talk was stilted... but at least polite.  But when her friends walked up and she got up to join them, their words floated back to me.

"Why are you sitting with her?" they asked.
"Ugh... she just sat down. She's so awful."

Tears stung the back of my eyes...  of course they did. But I made a choice in that moment.

Maybe there would always be bad blood...  it just wasn't going to be mine.

FIXING YOURSELF BY BREAKING SOMEONE ELSE

Have you ever tried to fix yourself by breaking someone else? It doesn't work very well, does it? Sometimes it's person-specific... maybe they hurt you, and you want them to hurt back. Sometimes it's a lot more general... you're having a crappy day, and gosh darn it, if the world isn't going to have a crappy day too!!

The thing about breaking other people to fix yourself is that it's a lot like emotional eating. It gives you a bit of satisfaction for that moment that you're engaged in it... but when that moment is over, you're left with guilt and regret ---  and have done absolutely nothing to fix the problem that you were trying to solve in the first place.

Breaking someone else to make yourself feel better is a little like that. It fills an ugly little hole in your heart for a moment... but it's an even uglier fix to a problem that you still haven't solved -- only created new ones on top of your brokenness.

So what can we do?

First, I think that we have to recognize that we're even doing it. You can't stop something if you don't know what it looks like.  Just become aware of it... even if that's after you've done it.  But at least become aware.

We have to think of ways that we can create the same emotional response other than making them feel bad too.  Then, before we open our mouths, we can stop, acknowledge that we're looking for that response, and choose a different mode of getting it -- preferably one that doesn't hurt someone else.

And when we stop creating more problems for ourselves all the time, we can actually go about the business of healing the wounds that needed the emotional salve in the first place.

We can fix ourselves without breaking others... in fact, maybe it's the only that we can.