I've always wondered if the things that happen in life are to test ones ability to survive. Can you get knocked down, brush yourself off and get up...just to do it all over again? There are some who have the distinct luck to never know what it feels like to hit the ground. Others, well, they make getting up and surviving an art form. But is there a threshold? How much can the human spirit take before it doesn't have another knee to bruise, another eye to blacken, another hurt to heal?
Yesterday I had a moment of truth. I realized that my thick skin, this surface that I believed to no longer be permeable by the words of others, wasn't as strong as I believed it to be. Here is the dilemna. I am a figment of what people expect of me. I am, by virtue of some image cultivated in the minds of others, easy going and emotionally strong. I am unhurtable because I am together. I have a forgiving nature, and I am easy going, and can stand, take, handle everything that is pitched my way. I have a thick skin, which means you can say anything to me without worrying if it'll hurt because, well, I'm me, and things just roll off my back. Only, they don't.
I am the queen of the recover. Falling is a practiced skill, and I have no choice but to get up. What would the people around me think if I didn't? To lay there and maybe feel the hurt for a second, to allow myself a moment of weakness long enough to rest, maybe even recuperate doesn't fit with my image. I can take it, right? I always could, but I have a feeling I always won't. I don't feel like giving out any more free passes. I have earned my ability to bounce back, but that doesn't mean that I can't expect not to fall anymore.
My journey from the girl I was, the one who got up in pain and couldn't imagine staying upright longer than a few months, has been futile. She's still in there, wondering how come I have never come through for her. She wonders why I can't seem to fulfill my promise to make sure she never gets hurt again. I failed her and I wonder if I even deserve the chance to make it up to her. I put more faith in the actions of others than I ever had confidence in my reactions to them. I did it all wrong. While I practiced how best to rebound, which ways to recover the fastest, how to make it okay to be knocked down on behalf of others, I lost the part of myself that thought she deserved more.
The fear of being left behind, of being rejected because you are unable to fulfill others needs by justying their hurtful behavior is nothing short of ridiculous. So what if I don't forgive somebody for being cruel? Is my allegiance to them, or to myself? So what if I call somebody on the mean things they've said to me? Am I a bitch because I refuse to be a punching bag? Does it really matter if I'm not as easy going, if I don't make it simple and fun for others to be around me all the time? I am a person with layers, a history, experiences, scabs, and memories. Why am I not allowed to be an accumulation of all that? Why am I simply a reflection of what others need me to be? Maybe, today, I'm much more than that because I'm finally willing to give myself the chances that I've always afforded others. Today is about getting up, brushing myself off....for the last time.
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oh, my lovely Elle, i couldn't have said it better. I think it's often those of us who love others the deepest that get kicked the hardest. You absolutely owe it to yourself to preserve yourself first - your dignity, your heart, your self. Getting up is not a bad trait; becoming a doormat is. You and me, we'll start a club; our theme song? I Will Survive (the Cake version).
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