Because standing up for myself has cost me some long-term friendships, I wrestle with my sadness but celebrate my understanding.
By Susan Creamer Joy - Monday 28 Nov 2011
If I want to be really honest with myself, I have to admit that I tend not to be. Like most dented and damaged vessels of sullied consciousness, I have lived much of my life mimicking the factions I find most pleasing with a decidedly unhealthy preference for those most obviously cloying.
In short, I want to be liked and have done what it took to make it so.
I would have made a lousy attorney. “Members of the jury, I believe my client is innocent of all charges! However, if you don’t think so, I totally understand and sincerely apologize for bothering you. Would anyone like a cookie?”
I suppose I can blame my nearly obsessive desire to achieve mastery over the darkest and most damaging components within my psyche for that unfortunate propensity; but honestly, this taxing and unrealistic quest for sainthood is killing me, as I recently found out.
A few days ago new neighbors moved into the house next door to ours. Let’s just call them the Interlopers. They are a young couple with a small child and another to arrive within the month. It just happened that on Saturday my husband and I were outside in our yard at the same time our new neighbors were outside in theirs and also as were our other young neighbors and their three small children who share the adjacent property to both ours and to the Interlopers. Got that?
In spite of three families' worth of barking dogs (amounting to seven), my husband and I ventured an introduction only to be completely and totally snubbed by the Interlopers who made a beeline to establish a preferred connection with our fertile and much younger neighbors in the adjacent, toy-laden yard.
Already mourning the loss of our former neighbors whom I was quite fond of, this non-encounter merely added another layer of grief and further distanced me from joy by making me angry. So, what did I do? I spent the whole next day baking cookies and making a personalized welcome-to-the-neighborhood present of a notecard holder out of an old doorknob – replete with a sewn fabric pouch to deliver it in!
Admittedly, it was an odd gift and the cookies – well, let’s just say they suffered a bit around their blackened edges. Still, as I handed them over to Mrs. Interloper that evening, she regarded my efforts as though I had just handed her a two-headed snake; and as my exceedingly outgoing and curious husband was simultaneously rambling ad nauseam and asking Mr. Interloper a million introductory questions, I could almost swear I saw the Mr. pass a sidelong glance to the Mrs. while mouthing the words, “restraining order.”
I have decided that there are limits to being nice and I need to learn what they are.
Of course, I do admit to owning a dark side and to striking a fair balance between saccharine and sadistic by an equally inborn tendency towards sarcasm, lightly sprinkled with cynicism and festooned with candles of suspicion – not terribly unlike a colorful birthday cake concealing an RDT explosive.
However, like many explosives, I have lain dormant for decades.
Up till now I naively and earnestly extended the invitations, lit up the room, provided the feast, offered the presents and donated the time to unworthy party goers who failed to comprehend the sincerity of my affection or to appreciate the effort.
All the while I resisted the impulse to detonate.
At this point I’m probably one birthday party away from total annihilation but certainly not a person that those with reasonable access to heart and conscience need fear. For the duplicitous fare-jumpers and bottom-feeding sycophants looking for a free ride, however, it is party time!
Having recently undergone a grim phase of filial eviscerations after realizing that I’d been summarily scalped and skinned by several long-time friends, I am beginning to comprehend the logic behind protecting your pearls from swine. Like a feebleminded clerk at a five-star hotel, I had naively offered non-paying guests free lodging in my heart and unwittingly gave them carte blanche well past check out time. They got away with the towels and toiletries and would have stripped clean my soul, too, had I not gotten wise and changed the locks – and detonated.
Fortunately, in the wake of the explosion I have culled some valuable wisdom from the rubble:
Fact: If I am true to myself, not everyone I meet is going to like me.
Fact: I don’t like everyone I meet either.
Fact: This is perfectly alright.
Respect and consideration do not necessarily mandate affection and being alone is preferable to being deceived or to being used. Being alone is only a state of mind. Being sad about being alone is a choice and one I do not have to make.
We each have our own work to do while we are here, and often we have to do it without any obvious support but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t any.
It only means we are not looking in the right places.
In short, I want to be liked and have done what it took to make it so.
I would have made a lousy attorney. “Members of the jury, I believe my client is innocent of all charges! However, if you don’t think so, I totally understand and sincerely apologize for bothering you. Would anyone like a cookie?”
I suppose I can blame my nearly obsessive desire to achieve mastery over the darkest and most damaging components within my psyche for that unfortunate propensity; but honestly, this taxing and unrealistic quest for sainthood is killing me, as I recently found out.
A few days ago new neighbors moved into the house next door to ours. Let’s just call them the Interlopers. They are a young couple with a small child and another to arrive within the month. It just happened that on Saturday my husband and I were outside in our yard at the same time our new neighbors were outside in theirs and also as were our other young neighbors and their three small children who share the adjacent property to both ours and to the Interlopers. Got that?
In spite of three families' worth of barking dogs (amounting to seven), my husband and I ventured an introduction only to be completely and totally snubbed by the Interlopers who made a beeline to establish a preferred connection with our fertile and much younger neighbors in the adjacent, toy-laden yard.
Already mourning the loss of our former neighbors whom I was quite fond of, this non-encounter merely added another layer of grief and further distanced me from joy by making me angry. So, what did I do? I spent the whole next day baking cookies and making a personalized welcome-to-the-neighborhood present of a notecard holder out of an old doorknob – replete with a sewn fabric pouch to deliver it in!
Admittedly, it was an odd gift and the cookies – well, let’s just say they suffered a bit around their blackened edges. Still, as I handed them over to Mrs. Interloper that evening, she regarded my efforts as though I had just handed her a two-headed snake; and as my exceedingly outgoing and curious husband was simultaneously rambling ad nauseam and asking Mr. Interloper a million introductory questions, I could almost swear I saw the Mr. pass a sidelong glance to the Mrs. while mouthing the words, “restraining order.”
I have decided that there are limits to being nice and I need to learn what they are.
Of course, I do admit to owning a dark side and to striking a fair balance between saccharine and sadistic by an equally inborn tendency towards sarcasm, lightly sprinkled with cynicism and festooned with candles of suspicion – not terribly unlike a colorful birthday cake concealing an RDT explosive.
However, like many explosives, I have lain dormant for decades.
Up till now I naively and earnestly extended the invitations, lit up the room, provided the feast, offered the presents and donated the time to unworthy party goers who failed to comprehend the sincerity of my affection or to appreciate the effort.
All the while I resisted the impulse to detonate.
At this point I’m probably one birthday party away from total annihilation but certainly not a person that those with reasonable access to heart and conscience need fear. For the duplicitous fare-jumpers and bottom-feeding sycophants looking for a free ride, however, it is party time!
Having recently undergone a grim phase of filial eviscerations after realizing that I’d been summarily scalped and skinned by several long-time friends, I am beginning to comprehend the logic behind protecting your pearls from swine. Like a feebleminded clerk at a five-star hotel, I had naively offered non-paying guests free lodging in my heart and unwittingly gave them carte blanche well past check out time. They got away with the towels and toiletries and would have stripped clean my soul, too, had I not gotten wise and changed the locks – and detonated.
Fortunately, in the wake of the explosion I have culled some valuable wisdom from the rubble:
Fact: If I am true to myself, not everyone I meet is going to like me.
Fact: I don’t like everyone I meet either.
Fact: This is perfectly alright.
Respect and consideration do not necessarily mandate affection and being alone is preferable to being deceived or to being used. Being alone is only a state of mind. Being sad about being alone is a choice and one I do not have to make.
We each have our own work to do while we are here, and often we have to do it without any obvious support but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t any.
It only means we are not looking in the right places.