A Word Aptly Spoken

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I still have a lot of stuff I don’t know. There are things I try to do and haven’t mastered. There are ways that I know I could be living more effectively, more productively, or just more happily. Back when we were kids we couldn’t wait until we were “all grown up” and had all the answers. When we would be old enough to know better. Experienced and able to share wisdom. Do any of you know at what age that is supposed to kick in? I’m getting on up there in years, and I’m afraid it will never happen!

I’m still learning.  Sometimes I am really slow to pick up on things — especially if it means seeing what I had missed, where I went wrong, or how I mess up my own life through habits I need to kick.  As a sign I once saw said, “Be patient.  God isn’t finished working on me yet.”  Of all the people who need patience with me, I probably should be first in line!  I have some good mentors through friendships, counseling, reading, and a pastor with a nice understanding of questioning and looking at things in new and different ways. I’m slow, but I’m getting there. Or, if not getting there, I’m at least making progress in a good direction.

So, as I approach a milestone birthday this summer, I thought I’d take the time to look at what I’ve learned in the past decade and what I’m working on getting right in the one to come.  Sure, I wish I had learned some of these things in my twenties, thirties, or forties.  Sure, it’s getting to the point where I have a lot of time behind me and not as many years ahead of me.  I imagine some would wonder why anyone would worry with self-improvement, changing habits, learning new things, and learning in deeper ways this late in life.  My answers to that are simple. 

First I believe in lifelong learning.  There is always more to know, and I would lose much of what life is about and what brings me joy if I lost curiosity and wonder.  Secondly, it stands to reason that the quality of my daily life will be richer and more joyful if the work I do to improve is successful.  No matter how much time I have left — whether I’m gone this week or live into my nineties like my grandmother and my father — enjoying the time, loving other people, and having something to offer are what make living worthwhile.

The first thing I have truly gained in the last decade is a sense of peace with my life.  I like who I am, how I live, and quietude.  I’m comfortable being alone with my own thoughts.  I can be alone and not lonely.  Alone and not bored.  And silence no longer echoes loudly begging to be filled.  Douglas Adams said, “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”  When thinking about the life I am living, I am reminded of the movie Under the Tuscan Sun.  Diane Lane plays a woman restarting her life by moving to Italy.  She buys a rundown, old house and is determined to renovate it. She tells the realtor that she wants it to be a place filled with love, family, a wedding, a baby.  At the end, he reminds her of this as she looks at the found-family she has made, the wedding she is hosting for an unlikely couple in her life, the baby that has been born there to a friend also looking for a new start, and all the love that surrounds her.  It wasn’t exactly what she meant when she wished, but it’s wonderful.  That’s where I am, and I appreciate it most days.

Another thing I have made some progress toward is being authentically me without worrying how it will be perceived.  I grew up with a “what will the neighbors think” philosophy drilled into me daily. It has been a bugger of a mindset to put aside.  A friend often quoted Eleanor Roosevelt to me saying, “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”  How rude.  You mean that everyone’s life didn’t revolve around what I did and who I was and how I dressed?  No.  The truth is that many, many people were just stumbling along worried about what other people think of them.  Just like me.

It has taken me years and years, decades even, to slowly allow that lesson to seep in.  Hell, it had taken years and years, decades even, to pound into my head the importance of appearances and fitting in.  Letting it go was twice as hard because I have to stop one mindset first and then replace it.  I really thought that I was making headway until one day I was brought up short.  Stunned into silence. I was passing the damaging message along to my granddaughters!

My granddaughters have a style all their own.  What the younger one thinks of as a “matching outfit” and what I deem that to be are often polar opposites.  “But Grammy, the plaid, the stripes, and the flowers all have blue!” I thought I was trying to protect them from being made fun of, from ridicule.  What I needed to be doing was making sure that other people’s reactions or criticism won’t in any way determine their self worth. I needed to realize that other people didn’t need to be happy with my granddaughters’ choices, and my job was to make sure that each stays confident enough in her own self that other people’s opinions don’t matter.  I needed to realize that what each has said in her own way, “It’s my style, I like it” is what I should care about too.They were way ahead of me on that, so I had to start working on teaching myself that too!  It’s still a work in progress, but I’ve made real gains.

I’m learning to believe that if someone doesn’t like me, that’s okay.  I don’t like everyone.  Why should I be diminished by someone, especially someone I don’t even like or respect, not liking me.  It’s about them.  It is not about my needing to be different for them.

Those are the main lessons of my last few years.  Only two, but they are wide-reaching and life-altering when I look at my daily living.  I’m not fully there but well on my way and much better than I once was.So what am I working on for the new decade?

First of all I am still and always trying to let go of old hurts and bad memories. I have dredged up words said long ago, slights that others probably never noticed but were devastating to me, and small cruelties. I often do better with the big things, because they actually get resolved. Small things go ignored and will fester and keep showing up. I am trying to program my response to these memories to become more of a realization that they don’t matter now – if they ever did to start with. Doing this will ultimately depend on how well I am able to achieve the second goal.

This will come as a surprise to many people, but if they think about what I say next and how I react to things, they will know that it is honest.   I have trouble speaking my truth.  I’ve had to work diligently to speak my mind, to be vulnerable and open, to share feelings and fears and hopes.  It goes hand-in-hand with worrying about what others think and how I will be seen and judged.  I am loud, strong, and fervent in speaking up when I see a social injustice or when I feel I have to defend someone else, especially someone I love.  However, it is not something I ever did for myself. I fail to set boundaries (and yes, Jen, I know I preach to you about setting boundaries – do as I say, not as I do. This falls under “if you can’t be a good example, at least be a horrible warning”).

Years ago I learned the hard way not to allow anyone to treat me as stupid.  I had allowed that at one point in my life and it changed who I was and how I saw myself. When I broke free from that, I spoke up in response to that particular offense.  In fact I shouted. I railed. Okay, I threw a fit. Someone speaking down to me or insinuating I am stupid was in for a real rude awakening and an anger they never saw coming.  I’ve learned to have a more measured, rational, and effective response.  But it took an extreme situation to make me speak up for myself. And even then only applied in that situation.

Today I am working on being me, doing what I want and need to do, and not allowing myself to be pressured into doing things.  I am naturally a giver.  I’m a gift giver and a time giver. I try very hard to be there for others.  I go out of my way to help when I see need (even if no one asked for that help…) I have always found my self-worth tangled up in making others feel good, comfortable, cared for, loved, safe, etc. But I have often done this at a great cost to me and to my peace of mind.

It is nothing for me to rearrange plans that I’ve made for myself so that I can do what someone else wants.  I go along sometimes when I would much rather not or would have rather done something else.  There were days when I have I tried to make my schedule work for too many people on a given week or day and have left myself spent. 

People often comment about how I go the extra mile for those I love and that I do it for those I just know or even some I don’t know too.  It is part and parcel of who I am. I will always do that to some measure. I am working on doing what René Brooks of the Black Girl, Lost Keys website refers to as “Guarding Your Yes” and just saying no to things that don’t work for me. I need to be able to say no when I really cannot be myself and stay well when saying yes. Moreover, I am easily hurt when others make no effort to do something for me.  I don’t do what I do so others will reciprocate, but needing someone when no one is there makes me feel used.

What I need to be striving toward is being true to me first.  Otherwise I become stretched too thin, become resentful, feel taken advantage of, and turn short-tempered.  I end up being liked for what I will do and how I change myself to fit the expectations others have while no one really gets to know the authentic me.  I have to be willing, and this is the tough part, to say good-bye to people who won’t allow me to do this. And the only way to find out who they are is by beginning. I need to differentiate between real friends, real loved ones and those who love only the person that they think I am and what I’m willing to do for them.

I need to realize that if a relationship becomes completely one-sided where only one of us is working to make life better or easier for the other, that isn’t a relationship.  If only one person keeps giving while the other keeps taking, that isn’t a relationship.  If one is always ready to help and the other isn’t at the other end of the phone much less showing up, that isn’t a relationship. I need to learn that I can say no — say it as a full sentence, kindly but without a lot of extraneous information that makes me sound weak or needy — and let the other person live with that.  If someone cannot understand or make room for my “no” or my needs, I need to stop making my decisions and life be about them.  

*”Like apples of gold in settings of silver, is a word spoken at the proper time.” (Proverbs 25:11) or as the first translation of this verse I ever saw said, “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” I need to speak the words that are fit for the time and situation, do so from a place of self-care and also of love for others so that I don’t become resentful.

That’s the goal.  It’s huge for me and I know it is for many others as well.  Setting out to make these changes may well be very uncomfortable at first. However, meeting this goal will allow me to be much happier and more content in the long run, do a great deal toward helping me out of the depression and anxiety that have ruled my life, and give me a vision of myself as someone of worth whose needs, desires, and loves are equal to anyone else’s.  Being confident and maintaining boundaries that are needed and realistic will also allow me to give with even more joy than I have in doing so now.