boundaries – The View from a Drawbridge

Let’s Each Pick a Theme!

A much more attainable self-improvement plan!

One of my favorite bloggers, Anju, who writes This Labyrinth I Roam, was reading my blog recently, and noted my general disdain for New Years Resolutions. I haven’t done them in years, because I hate starting off the year by setting myself up for failure.

According to this article, based on a survey, the success rate for resolutions is 35 percent. I’m guessing it’s even less than that. Would you really answer honestly to some random surveyor when you know you’ve been eating snickers bars instead of salads as resolved?

In response to my resolution aversion, Anju sent me a link to this wonderful 6-minute YouTube video that actually gives me hope for a more attainable self-improvement plan.

I highly recommend that you take a moment to watch it yourself, but in a nutshell, the concept of themes was presented, and here’s how it works.

If you want to make some positive life changes, rather than make a resolution, set yourself a theme. Instead of an inflexible goal with hard data points, such as losing x number of inches around your waist by the end of this calendar year, make it a broad theme such as “Health”. Who cares about hard data? Self-improvement is the ultimate goal, and there are a variety of ways to reach that goal. Some of them may not even have occurred to you yet. Allow room for you to trend upward in a whole host of ways.

At various times throughout the day, month, or year, you will find yourself at a crossroads that will require you to make a decision. If you have a theme such as Health, and one branch of that path is healthier than the other, you will be more apt to take that healthier path if you have that overarching theme in mind. You might do several different types of healthy things in the course of that journey, setting yourself up for an upward trend of success without undue pressure, rather than feeling like a failure if you don’t meet a specific target.

So pick a nice broad theme, such as “Adventure” or “Gratitude” or “Family” or “Learning” or “Transition”. Choose something that resonates with you; something that you want more or less of. That theme will then adapt with you, based on circumstances, and no guilt will be involved. You’ll start noticing more opportunities that relate to your theme, and hopefully you’ll take advantage of them.

Isn’t that a nifty idea? And the beauty of it is that it doesn’t have to last a year like a resolution. You can have a theme that lasts a season, such as “The Winter of Compassion”.

After giving this concept much thought, I have decided that my themes for the foreseeable future will be Health and Boundaries. I have been pursuing better health ever since I got married and realized that I have a lot to live for. I’m really proud of my progress so far, and would like to continue that progress. So I suspect that theme will be with me for quite some time.

The other theme, Boundaries, is something I’ve been working on sporadically for a lifetime, but I’ve noticed since moving to the Pacific Northwest that my desire for boundaries is often challenged. These challenges cause me a great deal of confusion and self-doubt, and frankly, I’m getting tired of it.

It’s healthy to set boundaries. In the long run, the people around you will appreciate them. It’s nice to have a clear map of what is acceptable in someone’s life and what is not. For example, please don’t smoke in my house. That’s a simple one. Another one is please don’t spontaneously call me after 9 pm unless someone is dying. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

But here in the passive aggressive Pacific Northwest, people would much rather die than be perceived as being pushy or hurting someone’s feelings. Heaven forfend you actually speak up and assert yourself. Most folks out here are hardwired to bite their tongue, bottle things up, and not make waves. So when you violate someone’s boundaries here, rather than making those boundaries clear so that you can have better encounters moving forward, they’ll tolerate the intrusion, resent you for it, and then most likely distance themselves from you, and you’ll never understand why.

Here’s a prime example: Since I’ve been pursuing health, I’ve been trying to avoid eating sugar. Culturally, especially on holidays, people love to make cookies and cakes and the like, and it’s assumed that you are then obligated to eat these things, even if you don’t want them.

But I truly don’t want them. I do not resist these temptations easily. Overall, I think it’s much kinder to thank someone in advance and set the boundary rather than have them waste their time and money every year making me a fruitcake that I’m only going to either throw away or re-gift. That way everyone is on the same page, I’m not forced to keep track of my lies, and we can all focus on spending time with one another instead.

Also, I’ve been struggling a lot lately with the re-gift concept under these circumstances, because wouldn’t I just be passing the involuntary weight gain on to someone else? What right do I have to do that? And I hate wasting food, so throwing these things out pains me.

And yet a Pacific Northwest friend of mine is convinced that this kind of open communication is rude. He’d rather take in all the chocolate and cheesecake and smile gratefully, in order to let someone maintain a tradition that they may actually find to be a hassle in the first place. You’ll never know if you don’t communicate. They might even delight in helping you achieve your goal, because that’s how true friends are.

My friend, by smiling and remaining silent, then has to resist the temptation of eating the stuff and take the time to dispose of it one way or another, all so he won’t insult someone who probably wouldn’t be insulted in the first place if open, honest, polite conversations had taken place. Personally, I’d be annoyed if I spent all that time and effort to bring you joy, and then discovered I could have much more easily done so, year after year, by bringing you some fresh asparagus from my garden. Trust me when I say that my outspoken self is rarely hit with the sentence, “Why didn’t you say so?”

Isn’t open communication better for all concerned? You don’t have to be rude or pushy about it. My friend claims that by setting boundaries, I’m trying to dictate the behavior of other people. Poppycock and codswallop, I say. I’m not telling people they can’t bake cookies for themselves or anyone else. Knock yourself out. I’m just saying that while I appreciate the thought, please don’t make any for me.

Because I know me. I’ll eat them, feel sick afterward because I’m no longer used to sugar, and beat myself up for the rest of the day. So, yeah, this is a boundary for me, and I don’t think that those who truly love me will be offended if politely asked to respect it. Feel free to party with the Cookie Monster as much as you like. No judgment here. I’ll still love you. But in the mean time, let’s both treat each other with consideration.

If you think you have to be walked over in order maintain a friendship, then deep down you already know that you’re not being loved.

True story. I know a couple who ate cranberry sauce every thanksgiving for decades. They both hated it. They were only choking the stuff down because they each assumed that the other one liked it, and they were trying to be polite. What a weight was lifted off them both when they finally actually spoke up!

I am sick and tired of this vague, passive-aggressive fog that floats over this part of the country and makes it harder to form solid friendships. I’m tired of being confused to the point of feeling like the East Coast turd in the West Coast punchbowl.

I plan on embracing ways to define my boundaries. I will do so in a courteous and loving manner whenever possible, of course, and I will acknowledge the kind sentiments and cherish the people behind them. I will do this because I believe that in the end, healthy, sincere communication saves everyone a lot of time, energy and drama, and that is a gift to all those concerned. (And if my friend doesn’t like my new theme, then he better buckle up, because this is going to be a bumpy ride for him.)

I also want to stop struggling with saying no to things and with putting my foot down rather than being taken advantage of. I hate confrontation, but if an anti-vaxxer tries to insist that he should be able to come into my house without a mask, I am perfectly within my rights to draw a line in the sand, and if, as a last resort, I have to get hostile to do so, I should not feel the least bit guilty about it. That bit of self-improvement is out of my comfort zone, and might require more effort on my part. Pardon my dust. I’m a work in progress. Aren’t we all?

So now I have themes. I feel better already. It’s nice, in this unpredictable world, to have some boundaries that you can count on. And if I construct those redoubts myself, then one day I’ll look up and realize I’ve created a comforting sanctuary, indeed, and one where all loved ones are quite welcome.

So, wish me luck! And I’d love to hear about your unique theme in the comments below. As my dear and inspiring friend Carole likes to say, “Onward and upward, into the future!”

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On Losing Friends

You have a right to put your foot down.

There are very few things on earth that make you feel more lonely than having to say goodbye to a beloved friend. I’ve had to do that twice in the midst of this already isolating pandemic, and not a day goes by when I don’t have tears in my eyes at some point because of it.

What? Oh, no, they didn’t die. That would be infinitely more tragic. But they both broke my heart, making me feel like I was dying. Either way, it’s a mourning process, and one I barely have the strength for.

There just comes a point when you have to stop tolerating bad behavior from the people you love. You have a right to set boundaries. You have a right to put your foot down. You have a right to say, “No, you don’t get to do this.”

You should always be your own best friend. You need to put a stop to things that hurt your heart, even when they come from people with whom you have had decades of happy memories as well as a mountain of emotional investment. If you’ve tried to communicate and/or work things out and gotten no results, you have to say, “This far and no further.”

So for future reference, here are a few boundaries that I have set:

You don’t get to insult people you don’t even know on my Facebook page. Respect me, respect my friends. You don’t have to agree with them, but you don’t get to attack them.
If you espouse hate speech or try to encourage violent behavior, I don’t want you in my universe.
If you’re going to stand me up, blow me off, or take advantage of me, you better have a stellar excuse. And if you never return my calls and then accuse me of not being a good enough friend, you’ve made my choice for me.
If you make promises and then don’t keep them, I will lose trust in you. It’s hard to maintain a friendship under those circumstances.
You don’t get to exaggerate other dear friend’s behavior to the point of damaging their reputation, simply so you can win an argument. If you tell me that a friend I have known for decades, who has a reputation of never saying an unkind word to anyone, has suddenly verbally attacked you without any discernible motivation and with no proof whatsoever provided by you, I have to call foul. Not only are you insulting my friend, but you’re insulting my judgment.
You don’t have to like all the things I like, but if something is extremely important to me, the least you can do is be supportive of that thing. My blog, for example, is me on a page. When you continually reject my invites to my Facebook group, that’s painful enough. But when I offer to send you a link to one of my blog posts and you say, essentially, “Please don’t,” that’s like a rejection of me. How hard would it be to just say thanks and fake it?
If you know you’ve been hurtful, set aside your pride and apologize. If you choose your pride over our friendship, then the friendship must never have had much value to you in the first place.

For what it’s worth, I tried to salvage the wreckage of one of these friendships. I tried really hard. He just bent the truth more and more to prop up his stance, until finally I was the one who felt broken.

And in the other situation, it suddenly occurred to me that this person has made me feel bad more than once, and never has apologized, not once, in all the decades I’ve known him. I’m tired of begging to be treated decently. I shouldn’t have to ask for an apology. It should be a natural process once you know you’ve hurt someone. I realized that if I just swallowed my pain yet again and accepted my second class status in his world one more time, it would rot away my soul. This person could still apologize, and we could move on, but I’m pretty sure he never will. I suspect he is sorry, but I don’t think I’ve ever meant enough to him to merit an apology. And that crushes me.

That all of this is happening during a pandemic is bad enough, but then add on top of it the fact that I moved to the Pacific Northwest 6 years ago, and, with one or two wonderful exceptions, I’m struggling to make friends out here like I made the other 5 decades of my life.

It’s hard to make new friends after a certain age. Older adults have well established lives and obligations, so the opportunity to bond is just not there as much. That, and people are a lot more standoffish out here than I’m used to. I’m pretty sure I’ll never quite fit in. I can’t remember the last time someone took the initiative to do anything with me. Out here, I do all the asking, with very mixed sucess.

Oh, and I just remembered that one woman out here accused me of killing my cat and making a joke out of it, and called me a sick, sick person. When I pointed out that I haven’t owned a cat in nearly 40 years, and that I didn’t know what the heck she was talking about, she stopped talking to me. Who could even think that I could do something like that? So yeah, another boundary I’ve set is that I can only take so much crazy.

What I’m finding is that as my self-confidence and self-awareness grows, I’m less willing to put up with bad behavior. But the humiliating truth is that, my whole adult life, no one has ever called me their best friend. What does that say? I don’t know. But it hurts like hell, and it makes it hard for me to remember that quality is more important than quantity.

So, if you see me enforcing boundaries, or speaking my truth (not yours) don’t assume I’m being insecure. Instead, congratulate me for my own agency. Cheer me on for standing my ground. Think of me as strong, not defensive or paranoid. View me as healing, not broken. Is that too much to ask?

It’s just… I’m just really sad and lonely today. I’m struggling. (For what it’s worth, I wrote this more than a week ago, so I’m probably doing much better now.)

I know I can’t be the only one who feels this way. Thank GOD I have a wonderful husband and awesome dogs. It’s amazing how couch snuggles can make you feel that everything is right with the world.

Bleh. Thanks for listening. I need a hug.

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Worlds on Walls

Murals reduce our confinement for a brief, shining moment.

During this pandemic, and also due to a recent snowstorm that had me stuck in the house for 36 hours, I’ve been thinking a lot about people who are confined for various reasons, who don’t get to explore the wider world as much. There are inner city children who have never walked in the woods. There are people with limited imaginations who have never dreamed of life on another planet. There are those with health issues who may never get past the borders of their home, town or state.

My heart breaks for these people, because I genuinely believe that humans were born to be nomadic. We were meant to explore the wider world. We were given curiosity for a reason.

I will forever be grateful to artists who create murals. Murals break the boundaries. They reduce our confinement for one brief, shining moment. They spark our imaginations. They tell us of places we have never been, and introduce us to people we haven’t met. They take a flat surface and give it depth. They transform a drab cityscape into a colorful fantasy world. They transport us and transform us. Murals are windows to another world.

Here are some of the amazing murals that have been sent to me via friends in the Pokemon Go app lately. Enjoy!

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It’s Your Body

No one should ever touch you without your permission.

Several years ago, I wrote a blog post called Tickling, about how tickling can be a form of aggression, and how it can often be very unwelcome and inappropriate. That blog post resonated with a lot of people. It’s short and to the point, so I hope you’ll read it.

I thought of that post recently. I was really impressed to discover that one of my nieces is teaching her two-year-old daughter that no one should get to touch her in any way, shape, form, or fashion, without her permission. Forget about good touch, bad touch. It’s her body. She gets to say who touches it, good or otherwise. We all have that right, but we often forget that.

Just because Uncle Fred is a touchy-feely guy does not mean that he gets a free pass just so you can avoid ruffling family feathers. If he’s making you uncomfortable, that’s never okay. Not ever. Even if you love Uncle Fred to pieces. And that applies to recipients of those touches of any age, not just children.

Also, just because someone is in a position of authority, such as a doctor or a dentist or a teacher or a boss or a politician, or even an older relative or a spouse, that does not mean they get to decide how you are touched. Absolutely not.

I’m not saying that every person who is touching you inappropriately is automatically a sex offender who is grooming you. Some people are just clueless. But it doesn’t really matter. If you aren’t comfortable in a tactile situation, regardless of your age, orientation, or relationship, it’s your body, not theirs, and you get to dictate what happens to it.

Your body is truly the only thing in life that you will always have all to yourself. That’s why it’s such an extreme violation when someone abuses it. I love knowing that there are children out there who are being taught their own agency practically from birth. That’s how it should be. I wish it had been taught to me.

Always establish your own boundaries and make them crystal clear. That’s not being rude. It’s appropriate. And I think that you’ll find that most people are a lot more comfortable, knowing the rules in any given scenario.

Never forget that your body belongs to you and you alone. Always.

Inappropriate Touch

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A Deeper Look at Coloring Books

These books first came out to induce submission in children.

I must confess that I have adult coloring books. And that really does feel like a confession to me. Isn’t coloring the stuff of children? I’m slightly embarrassed by this activity, but I find it very comforting at the same time.

In a world that feels increasingly out of control, coloring is wonderfully predictable. There are established boundaries. And while these boundaries do exist, I still get to choose how pretty to make the spaces within them. It’s my way of feeling creative without actually expending too much mental energy on it. I can get lost in the patterns and set my anxieties aside for a brief, colorful moment.

So when I came across an article entitled, “The Dark, Forgotten History of Coloring Books”, I didn’t want to read it. I didn’t want my multicolored bubble to be burst in any way. But, as is so often the case, curiosity got the better of me.

It seems that coloring books first came out as a way to induce submission in children. They were used to teach them how to behave. It’s part of the reason so many of us are loathe to color outside of the lines. Them’s the rules, after all.

The first coloring book was called The Little Folks Painting book. You can see it here. It includes lessons which are really warnings about not being disobedient. Don’t play tricks on people. Don’t be selfish. Don’t oversleep. According to the article, one of the lessons is,

“Never be discontented, never wish for anything you cannot have.”

Well, now, isn’t that creepy? By coloring, we’re being compliant. We’re being contained. We’re learning to accept the things we cannot control. By killing time in this way, we’re also not being trouble-makers. And John Lewis reminded us how important it is to make good trouble.

Even more chillingly, the article says,

“To color is to inhabit a world designed by others, to dwell in an environment where you are left with no options but to memorize what is already there… After days of coloring these diminutive dreams, I came to see the energy I spent on it as dimming my capacity to imagine how a future can be conceived and built.”

Shades of 1984.

So will I stop coloring? Probably not. Sometimes you just need to shut off your brain. But it’s crucial to remember to turn it back on.

Maybe I’ll have to come up with even more ways to make these designs my own, besides simply choosing which colors go where. Perhaps I’ll use the designs as wrapping paper for a gift. Or maybe I’ll fold them into Christmas ornaments. Maybe I’ll take the author’s suggestion and tear them up and make a collage. Or I’ll create a tattoo.

I’ve always been rather noncompliant. I don’t suspect that will change any time soon. I do believe in certain rules and regulations, simply in order to live without chaos. But I hate the idea of being manipulated in any way. So yeah, I’m apt to color outside the lines of life.

But every once in a while, it’s nice to let others make the choices for you, if only on the page of a coloring book. As with any habit, though, moderation is key. I don’t want to turn into a Stepford colorer. That would not be good.

The_Little_Folks_Paint_Book

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Diagnosed with Inflammation

Sometimes diplomacy is not what’s needed.

Recently, someone I respect very much told me that my blog is inflammatory, and that he found that disappointing. Even though I can’t deny that accusation, it did make me sad. It made me feel as though he viewed my blog as flawed, and since my blog is basically me on a page, it is kind of hard not to take it personally.

First of all, I’d like to think that my blog isn’t inflammatory all the time. I do write about nature and travel and my dogs and my gratitude for the many gifts that we are all given by the universe. I write about hope and courage and decency. I write about the many things I have learned and the many things I still need to learn. I am proud of this quirky little blog of mine.

But yes, my politics are blatantly obvious. Yes, I call out public figures. I do not give Trump a pass on his idiocy. Sorry. I’m hardly alone in that. And if you put yourself out there and are reaping the sweet benefits of your fame, you also have to be able to drink the bitter dregs of your infamy as well.

Let’s face it, though, politicians and their ilk are not reading my blog. They’ve got much bigger fish to fry. My blog is a mere clownfish in the overall media ocean. No meat on this bone.

But my respected friend felt that my inflammatory remarks might offend those people who disagree with me. He has a trait that I’ve never had: diplomacy. He tolerates dissention much more than I ever will. He is all about smoothing things over. His gut reaction is, “Well, now, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion…”

Well, now, I couldn’t agree more. And this blog is my opinion. My forum. My sandbox. That same friend has also informed me that I need to develop a thicker skin, but apparently that advice does not extend to my readers.

In case you did not realize this, dear reader, you don’t need my permission to disagree with me. And I strongly suspect that those who take offense do not read my blog for long. And that’s okay. There are plenty of forums out there that will support every opinion under the sun. (Don’t you just love the internet?)

I have this fantasy that people from the future will stumble upon my blog, and they’ll appreciate seeing how one person felt about current events. Count on me to give my unvarnished opinion about what is happening, right as it’s happening. (And none of us can deny that a heck of a lot is happening these days.)

By all means, put your thoughts out there as well. I highly encourage you to do so. But for facts, researchers might want to look someplace other than this blog.

I genuinely feel that our politics say a lot about who we are. So, yup, I will make sweeping judgments about certain political attitudes. I can like you as a person and think your political views are foolish and a poor reflection of humanity. If you don’t want to hear me call out views that I find irrational, then don’t read my blog.

Here’s one thing you’ll never see on The View from a Drawbridge, though: the kind of hostile, vicious personal attacks that I’ve been treated to on the internet in the past few days. I’m not a politician. I have only a marginal influence over a very small circle of friends. I know tensions are high, but I don’t deserve the bs that has been hurled in my direction recently.

I would never call an individual, total stranger’s comments asinine, or attack their character when I’ve never even met them. And I will call you out if you do so in any forum of which I’m a part. Because to me, that behavior is unconscionable. I’ll attack groups. I’ll attack public figures. But I’ll never verbally beat up an individual. That’s crossing the line.

But yes, I’ll call out an individual who is attacking me, or going after anyone else for that matter. I’ll protect those I care about from the harsh injustices of this world as long as I draw breath. That’s a promise.

Sometimes diplomacy is what’s needed. Sadly, diplomacy is not my skill set. Knowing your skill set is a part of what makes you an adult.

But sometimes diplomacy is not what is needed. Sometimes, you need to take a stand. You need to step up when someone is feeling bullied, even if you can’t relate to the feeling, and even if you think the bully in question is usually practically perfect in every way. That’s what’s called integrity, and it takes courage.

Even diplomats have to respect that there are limits. Boundaries matter. No one could mistake me for Switzerland, but I have boundaries just the same. So if you want to play in my sandbox, play nice. Otherwise I’ll invite you to find another sandbox, and if you persist, don’t be surprised and don’t blame me if I hit you with my verbal pail.

inflammatory

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I’ll Take Love with Conditions

I think unconditional love is an absurd construct. Even my dog has his limits. If I stopped feeding him or started torturing him, how much do you think he would love me then?

While it’s comforting to think that there is love that you can count on, I believe that the responsibility for maintaining that bond goes both ways. Frankly, I’d find it rather creepy if someone loved me so unconditionally that I could become a monster and that person would be okay with that. I do not want someone loving me even if I decide to be a serial killer. I expect to be held accountable for my actions.

I was once in a 16-year relationship with someone who enjoyed saying, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” I knew he was attempting to be reassuring, but in truth that always made me inwardly shudder. I don’t want blind adoration. I actually kind of feel better when there are well-defined boundaries. When I know where I stand, I can do so with confidence. That, and there’s a great deal of pressure to maintain your center of decency when, literally, anything goes. (I admit I didn’t handle it well.)

Parents are expected to love their children unconditionally. I can’t really speak from experience, as I chose not to have kids, but I suspect that “unconditional” condition is the very source of a great deal of dysfunction. If “unconditional” were taken off the table, more parents would be invested in instilling values in their children that would encourage them to be decent human beings, because it’s safe to assume that most parents really do want to love their children.

If we stopped looking at love as if it were a possession, as if, once obtained, you get to keep it, a lot of things would change. If people genuinely believed that one must be loving and lovable in order to receive love, this would be a kinder, gentler planet. If we knew that love must be earned, fewer people would remain with their abusers. If we set the bar ever-so-slightly higher when choosing a mate, it would make for much healthier family units. And if we looked at love as something that must constantly be nurtured in order to thrive, we wouldn’t be so shocked and devastated when it withers on the vine due to our own neglect.

It might also allow us to exercise critical thinking. This whole blind loyalty thing that is becoming the cultural norm is actually rather terrifying. If you vote for someone whose behavior becomes more despicable over time, your FIRST instinct should be a withdrawal of political love for that person. Your standards should be high, and your tolerance for outrage should be short-lived. Our leaders should be kept in check, as their powers allow for rather more destruction than most of us can endure.

So, dear reader, be loving. Be kind. And remember that it’s okay to set boundaries.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

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Boundary Disputes Made Easy

If Jerusalem has taught us nothing else, it’s that people take their boundaries very seriously. We like there to be a clear-cut distinction between what’s ours and what’s yours. Make no mistake: We don’t really forgive you your trespasses. History bears this out.

Because of this, it should come as no shock that we also have boundary issues on a personal level. Actually, no, man, I do NOT want you touching me without permission. Don’t act so surprised.

In fact, I don’t want to be “accidentally” elbowed in the elevator. I don’t want to be patted on the shoulder. I don’t want any unsolicited hugs. I don’t want to be forced into inappropriate conversations any more than I want to be forced into inappropriate corners. I don’t want to be followed or harassed or intimidated or taken advantage of or hooted at or tooted at. I don’t want to see your private bits, either digitally or in person. I don’t want to be called honey or sweetie or darling or dear. And my eyes? They’re up here.

Here’s an idea: if you want to do something with me, just ask. I’ll let you know. Is that so hard? And in the meantime, keep your freakin’ hands to yourself. It’s just that simple.

So, pay attention. There will be a test later. And I don’t grade on a curve. This is a Pass/Fail proposition.

Proxemics

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Psst. Over Here. In the Unpainted Corner.

I tend to think of relationships as solid, especially the long-lasting ones. But here lately I’ve been working on my boundaries quite a bit, and that has tested quite a few friendships. It’s scary and it’s lonely and I keep doubting myself. Just in time for the holidays. Woo hoo.

I have always had boundary issues, probably because none were ever established for me as a child. I tend to be a wide open, laissez-faire kind of person, which is fine when things are going well, but not so hot when things go pear-shaped. While I’m quick to stand up for others, I’m not one to stand up for myself.

Saying, “What you are doing is not okay with me” is something that doesn’t come naturally to me. It takes effort. It causes me a great deal of stress. That probably stems from the fact that I constantly second-guess myself. Am I doing the right thing? Am I being rational? Is it okay that I’m not okay with what you’re doing? Bleh. It’s all so exhausting.

So here I am, practicing boundaries. Here’s what’s been going on in just the past few weeks:

I’ve had to tell one distant friend from high school that I’m not comfortable with him popping up out of the blue after 35 years and sending me about a dozen (ignored) hug gifs and expecting me to do so in return. We never even hugged in high school. He didn’t get the message, and I had to un-friend him on Facebook.
Another friend used my blog to try to right a wrong, but when the post got the attention of “real” reporters, he refused to follow through. This undermines my integrity as a writer. It also gives me the impression that he doesn’t take my blog very seriously, and was just hoping to clear his conscience and not actually get results. I had to explain why, and just how much, I didn’t appreciate this behavior. I haven’t heard from him since.
And even as we speak, a contractor (not a friend, but still…) is about to receive a letter from me, outlining the fact that he ripped me off to the tune of $1700.00, which is money I can’t afford to lose. We’ll probably wind up in small claims court over this. But he’s an intimidating guy. I really don’t know how he’s going to react to my letter. I’m sitting here, feeling sick to my stomach about this, waiting for things to hit the fan.
But probably the most distressing situation of all is that some very beloved friends shocked me recently, to the point where I felt the need to distance myself and write them a letter about how I felt, in which I asked them to please help me to understand why they reacted the way they did. Boy, did I ever paint myself into a corner with that one. I’ve had no response from them. Crickets. So now I’m left wondering if I’ve misinterpreted things and they’re furious, or if they’re just too embarrassed to respond. It also makes me wonder if they care about me as much as I care about them, and not knowing that makes it extremely awkward to envision walking back into their lives again. I don’t know if I’d be welcomed or not. I don’t want to force them into anything, but on the other hand, I can’t just pretend nothing happened. It’s too important to me. I miss them, but I’m so confused.

Boundaries, man. They suck. As my therapist says, though, once you start making changes and move toward a healthier you, not everyone in your life will want to tag along.

So if you’re looking for me, I’m the one standing over here in the lonely, unpainted corner. (I guess if you’re wanting to establish boundaries, that’s one way to do it.) All I can say is that I’m a work in progress, and it will be really interesting to see who is still with me when the dust settles.

Meanwhile, I sure miss the days when it was easy to get a Xanax prescription.

boundaries

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Relentless Compassion

It’s for your own good. Tough love. This is a last resort. Mother knows best.

It sounds good, in theory. Like someone has your best interests at heart, and is establishing firm boundaries. It’s about time, some would say. Strong leadership! Yeah!

But even the slightest scratch to the surface of this theory reveals its many flaws.

First of all, who made you the Decider? How do you know if your way is the best way? What if I disagree?

Second, how is it that you’re the one person on the planet who wouldn’t allow this power to go to your head? Forcing people to do things, or live a certain way, or preventing certain behaviors, is the tip of a very large and corrupt iceberg.

And most importantly, what if you have a hidden agenda? What if you really don’t have my best interests at heart? What if you’re manipulating me to get what you want, and to hell with everyone else?

Relentless compassion is not a good look. Not for parents, or employers, or politicians. Especially politicians who are callous, narcissistic, racist, misogynistic, semi-literate, and completely out of touch with reality. For example, the idiot in the meme below.

I don’t want these types of people controlling, legislating, judging or defunding my life. I will resist them every chance I get. Just sayin’.

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