Little miss thing and her dad, circa 1992
As long as you are on this earth, you never stop learning. I have heard that a lot. I have also heard times and times again that it is never too late to learn new things. But nobody ever talks about the time wasted doing the old and dysfunctional things, but more importantly no one talks about how in order to learn some new things sometimes, you have to unlearned things and behaviors that are at the core of who you are. It is a hard process, one that not only entails learning new things but also learning who you are as a [new] person, every step of the process as you unravel; as you fall apart to be reborn a new person who not only knows better but does better. Today I am reflecting on the things I wish someone taught me growing up, the things that could have potentially saved me from the heartaches and the heartbreaks.
1- The importance of boundaries.
I have always had a strong personally: always knew what I wanted, when I wanted it and who I wanted it from but one thing I didn’t have was strong boundaries. Or should I say I just did not have any boundaries period. I let people come in and take from my cup until it was empty. I let people get into the most sacred places of my life, a secret garden that I took time to curate and watched them defile them with horror and tears without being able to utter a word. Not because I didn’t want to but because I never knew how. For the sake of love. For the sake of friendship. For the sake of preserving bridges that should have been burnt a long time ago; bridges that cheated me from the one that should have rightfully be in my life. I became a accomplice of things that I managed to forgive others but still struggle to forgive myself. I learned a bit late that “boundaries are not walls you build to keep people out: they are a perimeter you establish to keep yourself [and your sanity] safe”
2- The freedom of No’s
“No.” is a sentence of its own. I had to learn to say no. It wasn’t always easy. It still isn’t. However, it is sometimes a necessary evil. I learned that for each time I was saying yes to something, I was saying no to something else. And sometimes those “things” I said no to were things that mattered to me. And yet times and times again, I kept on saying yes. I kept on giving even in times when I didn’t have much to give; hell, even in times when I had nothing to give, I kept giving making the people I was giving to thieves because I allowed them to take away from my cup the things that I needed to sustain my own self. I kept on giving not out of being a good person but more because of the fear of disappointing or because of that feeling of guilt within me: I had promised myself that I would always be what / who I never had growing up and so I did. At first it felt good. Then it didn’t: I felt trapped in a place where every yes felt like a burden. It took me a lot of years and a breakdown to learn how to exercise my no muscle and stand my ground, but it came with a price. A few lost friendships, a whole lot of bad rep, being called out of my name but I have learned it is a small price to pay for the freedom to do the things that matter.
3- The power of a “yes”
When I started saying no and establishing boundaries, it was out of self-preservation but quickly it turned into fear. Suddenly, everything was too big and too scary; a bit too much to handle for my comfortable self. I wanted to touch the sky from within myself: I wanted the beauty of living life without the risks and the hurt that might possibly come from it. No matter how comfortable my shell was, I had to follow India Arie's advice and break it to experience the world. I didn’t want to go through life feeling the rain which simply means getting by with life: I wanted to really be out there and have the whole experience of life. It is safe to say no but without new experiences, we cannot grow. I have learned to be courageous enough to say yes and to look for the lessons in everything especially in the “Ls”. And although it isn’t really something that can be taught, I wish someone had told me about it.
4- Being comfortable with who you are
“what is wrong with you?” I grew up hearing that a lot. So much so that I started to believe that there was something wrong with me and started to try to figure out what it was. It took me a while to realize that I was just different in my very own ways. I wasn't the typical kid, nor the typical teenager and I sure enough grew up to be a very atypical woman. It took me a solid 26 years to find out who I was and come to peace with it. I had to learn to be more compassionate with myself and to stop judging myself using a barometer that made me feel like an outcast, like a failure because it did not include the things that made me who I was. “If you judge a fish on its ability to climb on a tree of course, it is going to fail”. It was a pretty accurate description of what I was doing to myself: judging who I was based on criteria that were not applicable to myself. “Being” is not universal: it is an experience that is unique to each and every single one of us. Some things about myself still irk me, but I am learning to honor the process and by the same token honor myself through it. But, most importantly, I am learning to love myself and stand for myself in a world that more often than not, tears apart what is different because it doesn’t understand it.
5- Taking the “Ls” as a champ and maneuvering life’s setbacks.
Nobody likes losing. I hate it more than anything. But as a youngest of the family I have been sheltered until later in life from some things that I had to navigate my way through. The real world is hard, it can be merciless and cold at time. As someone who at some point in time had someone to help me along the way, there were some things that I had to learn on my own. Life sucker punched me and in the times I experienced setbacks, in the time I fell and was unable to get back on my feet, I was harsh with myself. I felt like a failure and I wanted to give up because I wasn’t ready. I learned in those moments on the hard, cold floor of life, that we can’t always win. That sometimes, what matters is not winning but rather showing up and doing your best, even if at the end you fail. That there will be times where you will have to fail a thousand ways before you finally make it but each and every time, you have to look at the setbacks as an opportunity to refine your strategy and improve your game plan. I learned that strong and successful people aren’t those who never fail or fall, but rather, those who fail and try again, those who fall and rise again. It is tough: Some days there is more resistance than other days and sometimes I really feel like throwing in the towel but instead I wipe my tears and my sweat, trusting that my growing pains will be my growing gains.
I hope one day if I ever change my mind about having kids, I look back at this and teach them the things I wish I had known growing up. I know they won’t really be ready to face the world, but I will have peace knowing that I haven’t sent them out empty handed and that they have some kind of foundation they can stand on when everything else is falling apart.
