I admit I made that law when I was in deep pain. I had sold myself short for years (decades?) and allowed people to sooth me with words into putting up with less-than-honorable behavior. I don't want to pile on my ex here, because I still coparent with him. But we stopped being good for each other a long time before we divorced. The words turned out to be empty, as words so often are. We live in a world where people do not live with integrity. Weak people say things they don't mean and don't hold themselves to their word. And we all let them do it because we have all felt that impulse. It is easier to say things than to do things. And so we all live with empty promises and empty threats. And guess what? It leaves us empty.
It hurt me a lot to live that way. I wanted to be in my strength. But as long as I allowed myself to be placed at the low end of the table in people's lives, I did nothing to honor myself. Whether or not I felt I deserved it, I accepted less. I played the concubine, but I wanted to be the queen. My power was drained away from me. In truth I gave it away. It made me bitter. I got angry.
At some point I hit the rock bottom of taking emotional abuse from the world. I set the rule for other people in my life: Show Up or Shut Up. To be around me, people had to be true to their word. Deeds were what I looked at. It was hard, because words are pretty and easy. I had to be willing to cut my circle of trust down to the bone. I broadcast my intention to put up with no bullshit.
Like I said, I thought that rule was just for other people. It was my protection against pain. People who were all talk had less access to me. There would be no acceptance of half-measures. I was a hardass about it. I learned to sharpen and hone the word NO. I used it to cut a lot of people out of my life that didn't have the strength to handle the new me. I chose quality over quantity. It sounds lonely, but it was fine. It helped. I got hurt less. Not to say never, but I had to learn that some of my hurts in life happened because I had permitted them to. I sorta hoped that the people left in my life would follow the law, and that was enough. Not exactly.
Stripping it down further, I realized that I needed to Show Up or Shut Up for myself. Romantic relationships were an Achilles Heel for me. I felt that in a romance I should be able to get my needs met more if I applied the law to people and held them to a high standard. I can see that it wasn't a bad idea, but it was a skilled archer with a good bow but the wrong target. My needs really are not for another person to fill. When someone else wanted me to behave a certain way to make them happy, I balked. That sort of codependent thinking was a trap. I didn't want to be solely responsible for another person's feelings. That didn't feel right. That was a bottomless pit.
I started looking at, and in fact made a list, of the things I thought a relationship would provide me. I could see that I was externalizing my power. There I was, all strong or so I thought, giving away the keys to my inner core. I thought that was what I was supposed to do. When I looked at that list, I started to see that there were some ways I provide those things for myself. For example:
- I wanted security for myself and my son.
- Okay. I went back to school and got a job that would make more money
- I used some of that money to buy better insurance in case something went wrong.
- I wanted love and to not be lonely.
- Guess what? Being married to the wrong person didn't make me feel loved, and in fact was one of the loneliest times in my life.
- I resolved to spend more time with friends and my son and my pets.
- I wanted sex
- Crap. You got me there. I might have to have other people in my life for that.
- But not always.
In the end, at the end of my last relationship, I realized I could replace my last boyfriend with a sturdy ladder and a good vibrator. It wasn't worth keeping that person around to get stuff off of the top of the fridge or change a light bulb. The depth of feeling wasn't there for me to continue with him. So I broke it off, because my soul wasn't being nourished by it.
And he fired back by calling me a Selfish Bitch. Because he knew me enough to know those words would hurt me.
I figured I would be alone. I was scared, but determined to make a life one way or another. Alone if need be. I wouldn't settle. Working on my Masters' Degree, I focused on the goals above. Make it better, more secure. More friends. More love, less bullshit. I would Show up and Shut up for myself. I would quit bitching and start living in earnest.
Then in the back of my mind I remembered that unique and amazing guy who said to call if I was ever single. He had ideas about what to do about that. So the craziest thing happened. I dropped him a text. I put my heart out on a string in the most vulnerable way possible. That beat up, battered and scarred heart that didn't appear to be worth much to anyone else. Not even to me sometimes. I offered it anyway.
It took him a day and a half to respond, during which time I figured it was just talk. Empty words. And I would soon be dealt-I figured-a crushing ego blow. I had called his bluff and he was going to have to admit that it was just an off the cuff remark and he didn't mean it really.
Only that is not what happened.
Turns out he was picking his own heart up, from where it jumped out of his chest and landed from my sudden, unexpected pronouncement. And there was my heart, offered up. Only he didn't see it as a nearly ruined thing. He cradled it close and laid a healing hand on it. And that thing managed to warm him the way it was never able to even knock the outer layer of frost off of other people. I don't know which of us was more surprised.
Suddenly, like every person on a journey to enlightenment, I had a giant epiphany. And one of such stunning simplicity. I needed to Show Up for him. What made this real for us both was me shaking my schedule and budget until both bled, and I few across the country. And he was waiting to embrace me. And we made it real. The one law I had created to shield myself from other people applied to me as well. If I wanted to be close to him, I needed to follow it myself.
My heart feels good for the first time in ages. Everyone notices. I am gobsmacked by how happy I am. I'm a delirious lovefool. The world seems to be a little less harsh because I have softened up. I set down that bitterness I was drinking and I feel better. So many different things are happening. I want to show up for the people in my life more now. My friends, my parents, my son. I feel centered and secure. I am slowly daring to feel hopeful. Yes, I give him a lot of credit for being awesome. But I had to allow it, too.
Show Up or Shut Up is still the law of the Free and Sovereign Nation of Stacietania. It is a just law, that applied to all, brings a lot more peace than I thought.
