mic check

(are you still here?) people pleaser's anonymous

Zoe is really big. Not in size, she’s two and a half. But man, she takes her space. She is only ever herself, melodramatic about the smallest inconveniences, excited about the most trivial everyday wonders. (“Oh no, banana broken! Mommy, fix it!”) Zoe doesn’t give two shits about making my life any easier. Clearly. She takes what’s hers, (also what’s mine, her sister’s, and her father’s) points at it, and says confidently: “Zoe’s!”. This is something we carefully unlearn over many years: taking space. (At least we do learn the sad truth about broken bananas.)

I’ve been kind of angry lately, friends. A simmering heat in the back of my mind. This is what made me angry. I was leaving an appointment at a doctor’s office and she said: “Don’t rush. Take your time, think about what questions you might have after you leave here.”

Who, me? Sitting myself back in the chair and being silent for solid 5 seconds thinking up questions I was also wondering: is this even legal? You see, my whole life I was under the impression that unless you made a swift disappearance the second the doctor’s appointment was over parts of your body would start spontaneously combusting until there was none of you left.

“I’m tired of you.” “You’re too much for me today.” “Please, I need less of you right now.” We unlearn the most during adolescence, I think. The time when we’re at our most dramatic and probably try to take a little more space than is reasonable. The world doubles down on us and takes it away, instead.

The things I worried about as a teenager are truly insane. I know people say it’s hormones and puberty happens to everyone, but it’s hard to believe I wasn’t the worst in the entire world at being fourteen. I’m angry because I’ve been believing this lie that if I take any space, if I argue, ask questions, confront, everyone will hate me. Being difficult is actually fine. I’m the most difficult to Julz and look, he’s obsessed with me. Maybe men do love bitches, after all.

I don’t think most of the people who know me would label me as a people pleaser. You know why? It’s because I’m good at it. If people know you’re a people pleaser, they don’t credit the good things you do to your outstanding character.

I’ll tell you a secret. What you have to do is sometimes let yourself be a mild to medium level menace. Then people think: “Wow, what a person that’s truly themselves, they really must not care what I think. Therefore all those times they’ve been an extremely pleasing person have definitely been genuine.” I call it strategic shiftiness. It’s a whole art. Or maybe it’s the opposite and I’m just really bad at it and people are constantly displeased.

A few weeks ago I canceled a social engagement because I was feeling down, and tired, and didn’t feel like seeing anyone. I didn’t come up with an excuse. I just said I wasn’t feeling up for it, like one of those people that believe that my mental health actually matters more than the awkwardness of canceling on someone. Then a week after that someone tried to interact with Zoe in a way that I found strange, so I said: “Excuse me, that’s not okay.” And took her away from that situation. Said that, right to someone’s face, a real person.

Who, me? Is this even legal?

That’s character growth. We started with that early this year. Don’t get me wrong: the first couple of months have been way more sleep deprived, messy, and unproductive than planned. But as far as this blog is concerned, growth for me isn’t writing every day. It’s persuading myself that taking a break, falling behind… it doesn’t equal quitting. So here I am. I’m back. Still a little tired, but excited for so much and can’t wait to tell you all about the very unimportant many things I’m excited about. Thank you for still being here.

P.S. We also took the Christmas tree out on the FIRST of January. If that’s not not character growth then I don’t even know what we’re all doing here.