We must check in on these other emotions that are quieter and more easily forgotten. It’s very much like creating space for a quiet friend to participate in a conversation when they’re trying to talk but no one is listening to them.
“It’s wild,” I say. “They love commitment, that’s the funny thing. But only when it means other people are beholden to them. It’s like they want a contract but one that’s only binding on your side.”
I’m tired of big moments. Unprecedented this or that. There’s a reason that “may you live in interesting times” is considered a curse and not a blessing.
I’ve had a really hard time the past couple of years, thinking that people don’t like me. Seriously, it’s been a very marked uptick the past few years.
The worst feeling is when you realize that the thing other people have been telling you for years, the thing you dismissed out of hand, didn’t want to be true, didn’t think could possibly be true… is true.
No one wants to go first, but someone has to.
He storms out. It’s the worst thing I could have said. I’ll think about that a lot later — how sometimes the truth is the worst possible thing you can say. And how if the truth is the worst possible thing you can say, that’s a sign that it needs to end.
I’m forever amazed by how we never know how bad something is until it’s over. Not until the worst of it has passed and we’re safe do we feel the pain of the experiences we’re merely surviving.
I don’t know what to make of any of it. I want to appreciate it, but I don’t want to be entitled to it.
The sneaky thing about burnout is that fun things can lead to it. Not just work-work.
There’s no getting around it. One of the most sabotaging things you can do is not set boundaries with other people. It can be extremely damaging to your life and happiness if you regularly say yes to other people when you really want to say no.
I’ve been sitting here, the morning after an amazing date, trying to figure out why it hit me so hard. Why it was one for the books.
“I know keeping score is toxic for relationships. Those cycles can be so damaging and destructive to emotional connection. I get that. I don’t want to be a bean counter. I really don’t. It’s just behavior feels like the fast track to getting taken advantage of.”
In mindfulness work, they talk a lot about how emotions are visitors. They come and they go. And no matter how intense the feeling is, it eventually lifts.
I love doing my own thing and having my sweet little life to savor.
I have a giant soft spot for anyone who can honor both the size of the challenge and the scope of my strength.
Every time I look at you, you look away.
We don’t do a good job celebrating a calm heart or a calm life. But now that I’ve experienced both, I can honestly tell you that there’s nothing I enjoy more.
“Just wait ’til you get older,” my mother says, in that buzz-killing tone of voice she’s been perfecting for decades.
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“We get it,” my mother grumbles. “He’s perfect.”
“Well, I’m happy for you,” my grandmother says.
I’m never quite sure whether to feel loved or profoundly misunderstood by this tendency of other people to talk me into getting nicer things for myself.
People who know me well consistently point to things I do and say, “Yes, that’s you being hyperindependent again. It’s the hyperindependence of the traumatized again.” The idea is that when bad things have happened to you, the way you avoid learning helplessness is to be become very self-sufficient. You become strong. Take care of yourself.
The reality is that polyamorous people are just people… and that’s a very good thing.
I’m enjoying the simplicity and reconnecting with myself. Maybe it’s confusing to other people, but it’s not confusing to me. At all.
I have suffered from people pleasing my whole life, and am inclined to change too much for other people, especially if I like them. Even if it makes me miserable. It’s easy in such a situation to be suspicious of your own growth.
I’ve stopped myself, reeling from the surreal feeling of so many things going wrong, and I’ve said, “Well, at least it didn’t ruin a good mood.”
It happens then, on a random day long into the future, years after we first spoke of it. You do the thing I asked you to do. The one you said you could never do.
I know it didn’t feel like enough to you. But it was everything to me. Thank you.
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
-Anne Lamott
I don’t act on attractions quickly, even if I formed them that way. Attraction is easy for me. Trust isn’t.
I was so nervous to tell you that I was upset.
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