I Can't Change Everything.

After all of these post, someone is going to believe that I am the saddest person alive. That’s not the case. I write these post so that I can find clarity and maybe other’s can find clarity.

I started to think about something recently. I bought my grandmother a plant for Mother’s Day, and I followed the information online that told me how to keep this plant alive, but it hasn’t remained alive. It is wilting away. Even though I water it, changed soil, moved it in different areas of the house and outside; nothing is keeping this plant alive.

I started to think about that in retrospect to my life. Even though I put so much work into a relationship or a political cause that I believe in, I can’t fix everything that is wrong. I can dedicate my life to mental health and the stigma behind that and the LGBTQIA+ community; but I can’t change everything by myself. I can dedicate my time and energy to one person, but if they don’t dedicate that time for themselves or me, then the relationship can feel doomed.

One of the things that I always hoped for was the ability to always be in control. I have at many times felt like I had no control over myself, my life, and interactions focused towards me. I guess you can say, I’m overprotective. A lot of people don’t understand what I go through. A lot of people don’t see what I really stress about or what I do. I let people use me.

I let people use me because I just want to be there for others; but never myself. I give people insane amounts of money so that they can be stable. I do an insane amount of work for people to be successful. I let people use me. I’m such an idiot though. Life right now feels like I’m dancing with my hands tied.

I do not like to focus only on the problems that I am facing. I want anyone to be able to take something away from these discussions.

What come to my head is that we have to advocate for ourselves. It’s really hard to not give your all to somebody if that’s what you are used to doing. But, we have to liberate ourselves before we can be there for others. What I have noticed with others and myself when it comes to giving all of ourselves to people, we are hoping to find stability in ourselves and within our relationships.

When we give all of ourselves to others, we are trying to put in work so that we won’t be hurt. If we take on all of the work in a relationship, then we are hoping that maybe that person will appreciate us more. Maybe that’s what we have been taught.

We all have to have boundaries. I know that in many instances, if a person I love came up to me and said “I will only love you if you dive off that cliff”, I wouldn’t completely do it but I would consider it or at least plead for another way. That’s really sad for me to do that. 

Boundaries can really feel like we are trying to not feel vulnerable. Boundaries feel like we are trying to distance ourselves. In a way, that is true. To me, boundaries tell the other person that we value ourselves. We lose ourselves when we allow others to use us. We hope that we can find ourselves, but what we find is we eventually hit a wall. That wall comes up and we try to break it down; sometimes we break down that wall and sometimes we can never get passed it. If you get passed that wall, you will find another and it’s so tiring.

Boundaries do not make us selfish. Boundaries protect us. I’m sorry.

XOXO

-Sterling T. Grissom

Previous
Previous

Worth and Value in the Changing Social Environment

Next
Next

I want to feel needed