If I like you, I will give you the shirt off my back. I will bake you cookies, bring you soup and juice when you're sick, give you a ride to Target when you need toilet paper, help you move your couch up 3 flights of stairs, rush you to the ER for stitches, hold your hair back when you're puking, rewrite your cover letter for your dream job, let you crash on my couch for a week, sew the buttons back on your shirt, lend you money when you're broke, use my Google-fu to find information for you about overseas divorce lawyers, give you a hug when you need it (or a kick in the ass or both), and on and on.
I love this about myself, and I wouldn't change it. (This isn't to say I'm a goddamn perfect saint-- I can be a bitch, too. I push buttons, I'm an idiot sometimes, I flake out.) But sometimes I overdo the niceness and it turns into martyrdom, and I turn into a doormat, a punching bag. I'll take on all your shit so you don't have to, and then what am I left with? When I get busy and overwhelmed, what resources do I have to help myself if I'm giving them all away? If I'm focused on making sure you're happy? I mean, I want you to be happy, but sometimes I don't have the energy or the ability to do that for you. And if you try to call me on it, and try to make me feel guilty for not doing something or doing something or whatever else, some passive-agressive bullshit, when I'm having a hell of a time keeping my head above water? Watch the fuck out. I don't have time for that, and I'll let you know. Because I am the most important person in my life, and I've finally realized that's not selfish. I've finally realized that life's too short to spend it always pleasing other people.
But I'll still catsit for you, and go grocery shopping for you when you break your arm, and plan a kickass brunch to celebrate your new promotion. But because I want to, not because I have to.
Posted by thevieve at June 30, 2006 9:59 AMbut sometimes you wonder - why don't *you* want to? right?
Posted by: netter on June 30, 2006 3:42 PM