Do WTF you want.

And if you lose them, they didn’t belong with you anyway.

Last night I took myself to dinner. I noticed I wasn’t alone, he was right next to me.

This, I believe, is the hardest lesson of all for us to learn and live. Yet, as I embrace my 50’s, it is the most valuable lesson of all.

The fear of being alone in this world drives us to accept absolutely horrible behavior and treatment from others and in turn to behave in insufferable ways.

We bend and bow and contort ourselves into being people we aren’t, don’t like, and don’t want to be, just to keep someone who, A: is probably as confused about themselves as we are and B: isn’t anyone we should have in our lives in the first place.

This is especially true in our romantic relationships. The idea that we will end up alone, abandoned and forgotten has us in a tizzy of activity around keeping people in our lives, even if they hurt us. As if somehow being hurt and in emotional pain is less agonizing than just being alone.

I, for one, truly believed this lie for most of my life, up until just these last few years, when something within me, exhausted from the constant battle I waged to keep people who hurt me, begging them to love me, accept me, care for me in my life, lest I be the outcast I feared I would become.

Drained of every ounce of self-esteem and love for myself, I quite literally fell to the ground, broken and barely conscious of this reality I found myself in. I slept for months on end, and when I was awake, I was alone. That aloneness I feared so much, that came without a choice from me.

In the beginning I railed against it, reaching out to those I thought were my friends, begging for companionship. But I wasn’t a valued commodity to them anymore, or so they thought and so their time wasn’t worth spending on me. I had “nothing” I could give them.

Forced aloneness thrusts one into self-reflection, observing and evaluating one’s own contribution to the relationships in our lives, our participation in our own abuse.

I realized that my desperate need to be loved outweighed my need for boundaries. The need for acceptance crushed what little self-respect I had. I allowed people into my life that caused me pain, just so I could feel loved, and I was never truly loved.

For a while, I felt regret and resentment for time wasted on these people. Eventually forgiveness came for them and myself. No one really teaches us how to be who we truly are in this world. We are bombarded with narratives around “How to be”. Religion, Money, Success, womanhood, manhood, at every turn images and sounds reenforce these tropes and we have no other option but to play the role or we will be alone, an outcast, an undesirable.

The Horror!

In freeing all the lost souls in my sphere, I freed myself. In finding peace with the silence of my empty rooms, the time gifted without a calendar to adhere to I found my true self.

And that true self is no longer willing to play the games required to collect and keep people in my life.

So, I will be me, I will do WTF I want and if there are people who vibe with that, welcome to my party and if you don’t, “Sim Sim Salabim” Many thanks, now be gone with you!

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