After All These Years I Still Struggle

In Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “The power men possess to annoy me, I give them by a weak curiosity.  No man can come near me but through my act”.  This is a quote that is highlighted in my copy of Self-Reliance; the marks left there by a high school me who knew even then that these two sentences would be important.  Over the years I have come back to these lines time and time again, reminding myself that no one has power over me, my emotions, or my thoughts, unless and until I grant them that power.  No.  One.  
  
This past week, I forgot all about Emerson and his sage words.  For five straight days I allowed the people around me to repeatedly hijack my happiness.  I allowed others to determine the size of my smile.  I allowed others to bring me to a place of complaint and maybe even to a place of gossipy ugliness.  I am proud of none of this.  

It gets hard sometimes to remember that the power is always within us.  It gets especially hard for me when seclusion has been my norm for the past several years.  See, I had a lot of healing to do and I wasn't interested in sharing all that pain with anyone, nor was I interested in letting anyone see how completely broken I was.  It has taken years and I will probably always be in some phase of the healing process, though I am confident the very difficult work has already been done.  

But part of coming out of seclusion is letting people in.  And people sometimes suck.  People sometimes take their personal issues out on others.  People sometimes make jokes that aren't funny at all; they are actually quite cruel.  People sometimes forget their tone and speak with an ugly voice.  And sometimes people forget their responsibilities and place mountains of expectations in places where there should also be guidance.  Not blaming here - I am a person who also can suck.  I am a person who is guilty of all this and more.  We are all fallible, I no less than any other. 

But what really broke me this past week, the one thing that brought me to my knees, stabbing at my heart and screaming for my mind to wake up and remember; what broke me is: I Know Better.  I know better than to take it personally or to allow another’s actions to determine my attitude.  And even though I have felt broken before, no other broken hurts the same way it hurts when you have done it to yourself.  And that is exactly what I did.  I did it to myself.  I took the words the wrong way.  I allowed personal information out into a space where it did not belong.  I forgot to seek guidance.  For five straight days, I failed to take responsibility for myself.  

While I may have been little slow in seeing it this past week, I do welcome the responsibility. And I welcome the reminder that if I want to be the person of my own dreams, I must not rest in my efforts.  I must not take for granted the blessings that have come my way.  I must not stop trusting just because there may be hurt.  My own actions must not allow others to come near me in the way that Emerson warned against.

Because really, at the end of five days of struggle, the only person I was left with was me. And I don’t like the feeling of disappointment in myself.  I hardly recognize it anymore because I have worked hard to make it unnecessary.  Now that it has made a return visit, I now know that it is time to re-focus, re-center, and re-new all of that which I have known all along.

So, come on people; you can suck all you want.  At the end of it all I will still love you.  And me.