Romanticizing Bullshit

This post is inspired by a conversation with a friend, but it is deeply connected to doors in my life I have to force shut. Basically, if you need a wake-up call, here’s your alarm…

I am sure you have heard the phrase ‘let’s stay friends’ from someone you once thought you’d share a lifetime with. Or maybe you have had a soulmate that fumbled you, but you keep holding on to the fact that you had something special and even though it didn’t end well, they are always going to be a part of your life, and you just cannot do anything about that because ‘they get you’. I read a post along the lines of ‘stop romanticising a love that didn’t choose you by calling them the ‘one that got away’.

It could also be that you experienced something traumatic with a person. For that reason, you expect them to be there and show up for you because, after all, you have been through together, well, you guessed right the first time when they didn’t show up for you; what you thought you went through together affected you more than them, and you are not a priority.

You may keep lying to yourself by staying in a situation you know you do not want to be in, by telling yourself, ‘I do not have a choice, what can I do?’ This false sense of questioning that you do not want to find answers for. You know the truth, and it is what makes you uncomfortable, the fact that you can get out, but you are just not willing to pay the price for the peace you claim to want.

It may also be that you choose to settle for less than you deserve or even just voice out to yourself that you deserve better than you are playing at, but no, you prefer to lie and tell yourself that ‘you are just unlucky’.

It may also be the false sense of loyalty you feel to a friendship that no longer serves you. Deep down, you know that you have drifted apart from this person, that what they have to offer you is not even something you want, and even if there’d be willing to be there for you, you’d rather they find someone else to channel that change for, but what do you do? You drag the relationship along like an appendage of your past just to be able to tell yourself that ‘you are a ride or die’, never mind that just the dying part is active in that thinking.

Or maybe the only reason you are being loyal is that they were there for you at a low point in your life, and you are deeply grateful to them. Gratitude is not servitude. It’s okay to accept that a chapter has ended, and you can forge on without your benefactors. In fact, you are allowed to make space for new ones. Loyalty does not mean you have to force sustainability for a relationship that has filed for bankruptcy.

It could be that you are telling yourself you are not good enough to follow your passion, because how can you do that when there are so many more people better than you? So are many others who do not have all the things you have but clearly surpass you in audacity.

It may also be that you keep bowing down to the expectations of others of you by trying to keep living up to their opinions of you. You keep wanting to project a respectable image of perfection, and so you play for likability. You never say how you really feel because you are scared of being perceived as too controversial. Guess what? They can still sense your pretence even when you think you are doing a good job of hiding it. There’s dignity in airing your voice with your own words and not borrowed censorship.

You think you are humble because you are dimming your light so that others around you will not be intimidated by your effervescence, well, that is not humility. That is merely refusing to own your identity. In fact, it may be pride because how dare you think that others are not waiting on you to turn on your light so that you can finally catch up to their light?

You know it is okay to own your opinions; you have earned the right to your uniqueness, however whimsical or nonsensical, but that doesn’t mean you have a right to be evil and affect others with your malady. Stupidity and short-sightedness are something you should always take accountability for.

You are actually allowed to dish rubbish back to the people who served it. In fact, you don’t even have to collect the serving in the first place. So next time, you find that overbearing person giving you advice that you know is condescending, it is okay to say ‘thanks, but I don’t think you have earned the right to talk to me in this way that you think’.

And stop apologising for things you know you are not sorry for! Let people have the wrong view of you; it is their view allow them creative freedom.

I hope I take my own advice.

Xoxo,

Dcconoissuer.