The Truth

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Several years ago, I achieved a major milestone in my life. As part of my celebration, I took a vacation; the first solitary sojourn of my adulthood. My intent was to visit a loved one, and to contemplate the course my life would take. It was a whirl-wind trip. I was toted around a relatively foreign city, carted from one monument to the next because, I was told, "I had to." There was no time to relax or process. When given an opportunity to select from activities, my voiced opinion appeared considered and subsequently rejected. As a result, I felt under-appreciated, overwhelmed, frustrated, and emotionally taxed. Eventually, this experience culminated in a fight.

I had been under the impression that I was going to select our activity that day. Instead, my preference was denied. When I voiced my concern, a woman I thought I knew turned on me.  In a very public setting surrounded by complete strangers, she yelled at me.

"This is MY city!" she declared, in response to my reminder that I was on a much needed vacation.

She then proceeded to berate me and my entire family. In not as many words, she told me I was ungrateful, stubborn, impatient, inflexible, and inconsiderate. She devalued my entire worth that day. Then she informed me she was going to the destination of her choice, and I could choose to follow her.

For the first time in my life, I thought to myself "I'm an adult and I don't have to do what you say." So, I stood my ground (literally), and watched her walk away. Suddenly alone, in a city I had not seen since childhood, I began to feel utterly lost. I barely knew where I was physically, and I had no idea where I was emotionally. Without any clue of where to go, I found a horizon, and I began to walk.  As I did, I called my mother. Through poorly controlled sobs, I relayed what had happened. I explained feeling pressured to appease this woman simply because I was a visitor in her home, in her city, in her world.

My mother, wonderful support that she is, sided with me. She agreed with my decision to remain alone. In fact, she suggested I explore the city  by myself.  She made sure I knew how to return, and gave some of the best advice I ever received.

She said, "take some time. Do what you want to do. Then, when you're ready, go back to her. Tell her you're sorry, and ask to take her to dinner." She said she knew I didn't want to do any of that, but I was only there temporarily. She said, "you just have to get through tonight."

So, I listened to her. I took some time to appease my neglected need for relaxation. Then, I sucked up my pride, and found my way back to this person, in an unfamiliar city.

When I arrived at her house, she was on the phone with a friend; chatting. She smiled and waved me in like nothing had happened. Unsure of myself, I sat next to her and waited while she finished her call. When she hung up, I did what my mother told me to do. I apologized.

I sat in her living room, as she told me how disrespectful I was. She reiterated that I was selfish, rude, and unappreciative. In doing so, she used examples from the week prior, and instances from my early life. I listened as this woman, who assumed she knew my personality based on sporadic visits throughout my childhood, told me I was spoiled rotten. I sat quietly as she accused me of being overpriviledged and insulting because I had once asked her why my 7th birthday card was late. As an adult, I allowed her to drag up moments of age-appropriate immaturity from my youth and use them as proof that I was, and always had been, self-centered. Then, she told me, it wasn't my fault. She forgave my insensitivity and immaturity by explaining that my parents had neglected to teach me respect. She said I didn't hold those values because they were not instilled in me. She further proved this point by citing all the instances my siblings had treated her in a similar fashion when they were children. In one fell-swoop she insulted my entire family.

And, what did I do? Exactly what my mother, who never taught me respect, told me to do. I listened, and apologized. I told her she was right. I said I had not known thank you cards and formal gestures were required to demonstrate love and affection. Then I asked to take her out for dinner, and she obliged.

That night I cried quietly into the keys of my smart phone, as I wrote my parents an email asking if any of her words were valid. At this point in my life, I had no idea who I was. Naturally, someone (who I thought knew me) chosing that moment to say I was an awful person resulted in one profoundly distressing question. Was any of it true?

I know now that it was not, and never was. I know now, that these were callous reactions from someone making over-generalized assumptions based on  behavior once observed in my childhood. She had no idea who I truly was as an adult, because she couldn't see that I had grown up. Though she recognized my growth and appearance, she still viewed my attempts to communicate and discuss as the whining inflexible tantrums of a much younger me. If she were really looking, she would have seen the truth.

I am compassionate.
I am reasonable.
I am kind.
I am giving.
I am honest.
I am caring.
I appreciate my life, and the people in it.

Perhaps the most important thing I learned from this experience is the truth that hurts the most: I can be loyal to a fault, but even I know that some people are not worth keeping around. It's sad, but sometimes you have to cut ties with those who hold you back. For me, that means choosing not to maintain a relationship, however mandated by cultural values and biology, with anyone unwilling to hear or see me for who I truly am. 

Wedged

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Sometimes I get my hopes up so high that they can only be dashed. ― No. You know what? Scratch that.

Pretty much any time I'm excited my expectations reach unattainable heights.
 
Unfortunately, this means I find myself falling from emotional extremes on the regular. It sucks, but I have always been this way. At least now I am able to recognize it. I do this by comparing the sensation to my first frustrating experience of letting myself down, which is mortifyingly stereotypical with wardrobe-centricity.

I was in middle school. Therefore, my appearance was overwhelmingly important to me. I truly believed that the right outfit would one day catapult me to social success, because that's what mattered. The right Gap sweatshirt was going to get me in with the cool kids, and the wrong platform sneakers were sure to loose me any chance with the hottest pock-faced guy in the commons.

Keeping this in mind, I carefully selected everything I wore. I perused catalogs, and back-to school shopping with Mom was, at times, a weekend long experience. One time I walked away from this epic adventure with what I thought was the most beautiful summery pale blue skirt. It had pink flowers embroidered along the bottom hem, and I was in love with it. In my eyes, it was incredible and no one at school had ever seen anything like it. In reality, I would not actually fill it out for about 5 years.

When we arrived home, I immediately ran it to my room to prepare for the parental fashion show that followed every shopping endeavor of my adolescence. I put it on, paired with a white button up, and ran downstairs to show it off.


"Very pretty," My mom said, "but what shoes are you going to wear with it."

Panicked, I looked down at my bare feet. I didn't own anything that would go with this outfit. Fortunately, an image of the most perfect pair of white platform wedges came to mind. I explained them to my mom, and the next weekend we set out to find them, but to no avail.

We must have gone to 20 stores that day. Several had shoes similar to my idea, but these shoes did not seem to actually exist as I had imagined them. I found white shoes with tacky flowers, tan shoes with white designs, pale brown wedges, summery flip-flop heels, and white dress shoes. Nowhere did anyone have a pair of plain white wedges.

In retrospect, any number of the shoes we stumbled upon probably would have gone with my outfit. However, I had my heart set on this concept that seemed to be stuck in my brain, and something close just wasn't it. So, I gave up. I went home pouting. I put the beautiful summery skirt in my closet, and looked at it longingly each morning for far too long. The passion I had invested into actualizing my dream of perfection was replaced by complete refusal to even try.

I have since grown to understand this as an incredibly typical developmental experience. Getting your hopes up is risky. The heightened excitement exposes vulnerabilities. It's awesome when it pays out, but the odds are not always in our favor. Ramped up expectations increase the odds for failure, setting us up for a greater chance of disappointment. Which makes giving up a reasonable reaction.

So, should we stop hoping for the best?  Should we protect ourselves from distress by increasingly lowering our aim from the moon, to the stars, to earth's atmosphere, and then to the sky? These are choices we all must consider. However, it is also important to consider that decreased risk of failure comes with an equivalent decrease in expectation and anticipation. This may also impair your true ability to experience pride, surprise, and elation.  Even emotional protection comes at a cost.