I've had multiple people make commits to me, telling me that I talk a lot. I've always felt bad about this, especially the more I've learned about the importance of listening. I've made a conscious effort to listen more and not talk so much. I feel like I've gotten better at listening (it's still a work in progress) but I've also found that I don't process my mind well, without communicating it, without getting the words out there. I've also found that I've lost my words in the process.
You see, I had become obsessed with becoming a likable person. Truly, for as long as I can remember, I've always made friends easily. I remember my parents would always call me a 'social butterfly' when I was younger (they still do from time to time). I also have always been naturally approachable. I remember being as young as 16, sitting in the dentist office waiting room, and a grown woman opening up to me about her marriage. So it's not that I haven't been naturally likable, actually being disliked is way more of a foreign concept and idea for me.
But just like anything, sometimes we grow attached to a characteristic or habit. It's not that it's a bad thing, it just becomes unhealthy when we begin to use it as a crutch, as our main support, our life support. That's exactly what happened with me wanting to be liked.
I slowly started taking pieces of myself and started hiding them. Pushing them far beneath the surface because in my head, that's what I thought it was going take to be liked more, that's how I was going to go from being liked to being loved. Because it became my life line, my oxygen each day.
Just like anything else, any drug, any addiction, anything that requires something outside of yourself, it slowly stops working. You need more and more of it to sustain. You need it just to feel normal again.
Not good. Not good at all.
It's crazy how hard it is to peel something unhealthy off of you. Even though you know it's not good, you know it's not healthy for you, it's still so hard to let it go. It's hard to let go of a lie that you convinced yourself is the truth.
I watched Eat. Pray. Love. the other night. I love the line in the movie where she says, "The only thing more impossible than staying.... was leaving." That's how it feels most of the time. That's how change feels. It feels impossible. It's like the diploma or degree you work so hard for, but the day doesn't seem to arrive fast enough when you can look at what you've earned in your hands.
But I see it, I feel it, and as hard and as uncomfortable it is to peel off. I'm doing it. Millimeter by millimeter (because an inch hurts too much right now). Slowly, I'm letting my words come back, I'm letting my voice come back. I've allowed myself to be small for too long. I'm kicking out the bad and holding onto what's important.
I'm very thankful for writers right now, people who put their words, heart, soul, dreams, thoughts onto a page. I'm borrowing their words for now. I'm taking what makes my heart skip a beat, what makes pulling the strings of change less hurtful, and I'm taking them out on loan. I'll return them, for they were never mine to begin with, but I'm borrowing theirs until I find my words again.
No comments:
Post a Comment