I was trying to figure out how I’d make a certain point in this essay and – ta da! – Christina Lopes, DPT, MPH posted something to her YouTube account that helps to get me started. On the image are the words, “Non-attachment is the most loving thing you can do”, and the post goes on to say,
“Why do we cling so hard to people, things and titles?
It’s not just because we love them.
It’s because they hold our self-image together – like emotional super glue.”
I find reading it to be uncomfortable because it is so true. There've been people in my life who have a variety of wonderful traits and contribute so much good to the world, people who brought some positive to my life, but they helped me a great deal with going through each month deeply dissatisfied and lonely and frustrated. I needed to be the one to change or end our relationships so that each of us could have more fun and respect and have a better chance at thriving.
I'm embarrassed by how long it took me to change my ways, but...for years, I was going through the motions, and not all but many experiences were brought about by my choosing the familiar locations, people, conversations, attitudes and thoughts just because they were familiar, regardless of the discomfort and/or pain. Many of these people helped me to maintain an environment in which I am still liked or loved, and I am respected, but I absolutely did not have enough social diversity. I kept myself surrounded by people who reflected back my mantra that I was not being taken quite seriously enough, not being seen. These people haven't opened their minds and learned in the exact same way that I have, so they see me as being just as ignorant as I was in the beginning of 2016. Some of them have heard enough out of my mouth that they unavoidably came to label me as a conspiracy theorist. These are folks who are so supportive and loyal in the only ways they can be and they're not ever gonna be able to accept that I've expanded as much as I have.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, spending a lot of time together pushed/pushes the limits of our good will and listening skills and maturity. I was underestimated and mislabeled. My friend Violet and my longtime hairdresser don't know how disrespected they made me feel when they blatantly did not listen and instead talked at me multiple times each. The hairstylist may have been coming from a place of seeing my potential (which i can take as a compliment) and feeling concerned when I didn't meet her standards of life achievement by a certain age, but she indulged the fiercely-independent-middle-ish-kid-in-a-big-family part of herself and gave me unnecessary, ill-informed lectures. She, Violet and one of my own parents each ignorantly insulted me as if I had been a dis-informed Veruca Salt who had chosen to immerse herself in conspiracy theories. It is highly likely that these three people will go the rest of their lives unaware that I know more of science than what I was supposed to memorize to pass exams in high school and I still don't appreciate the way these individuals chose to handle their assumptions about a woman they don't know well. I held grudges against both the hair stylist and Violet respectively for a very long time because I hadn't spoken up for myself at the time of each offense and gotten closure, but instead just...stayed angry ad said nothing on behalf of myself. What made it all feel worse was accepting that I kept coming back for more, choosing not-so-consciously to continue to be distrustful and grumpy, bored and frustrated by repetitive ideas…when I’d had the option to, *gulp*, take a risk, transplanting myself in an unfamiliar place that felt right, a place that included people who would have a few similar passions to myself, people who would respect me a lot and help me grow as a person, engaging in conversations about science, including psychology and experimenting firsthand with metaphysics, aiming for adaptability and intellectual flexibility, unintentionally serving as reminders for me to do the same every week.
The relationships that helped me to marinate in stress chemicals to a highly unhealthy degree from 2020 – 2023 have now either ended or drastically changed, and I’ve been determined to gain perspective on them and really learn what I need to from a time that was made terribly stressful (to the point of hair loss and a scalp issue!) by my attitude and the company I kept. As previously discussed, it has been uncomfortable. Thankfully, big changes in my physical health as a result have been motivating so that I don’t give up on grieving some of those relationships like deaths, letting them get the fuck out of the way. I'll find the right hairstylist sometime after I move. After all, I won't need a cut for another six or seven weeks. And I've now allowed much of my past to teach me not to try to alleviate loneliness by hanging out a lot with those whom I know I don't have compatibility. That just worsens the frustration. I vacated the seats I took up in the lives of these folks, and they've left mine, allowing for more fitting individuals to sit there instead. Why not have a more customized table from now on? How about I move forward as a better friend and more honest person, treating myself with more respect?
I'm assuming that te reason why Violet hasn't reached out to see me since February 2024 is because she, too, feels better now that we're apart. I had a phase where I grieved our relationship in a way that felt like a breakup or a death, and I hope she has gotten closue as well, because I don't want to ever again feel that rush of anxiety in my system because she said, no matter how jokingly, "I'm mad at you" because we hadn't been face-to-face in a while. Our personalities have always chafed against one another, from the time we met in middle school, but it got so much worse - so undeniably, clearly chafing - in the last nine years. And I've learned from that. I can't go back and have a friendship like that one in my next town, the next chapter.
Since 2021, I’ve known where I now belong, and I didn’t do more than research until ’24. All this time later, I have given myself the permission I need to be more empowered than that. I have organized stuff in containers again, stacking them up, taking back some of the control over my thoughts, feeling proud and excited to the point where I’m almost vibrating. I wanna reference what I heard a short while ago while listening to advice from the now-deceased Ozzy Osbourne. He said, "Don't chase money, the money will come".
To that hairstylist, as talented as she is, and to Violet, who will never read this, but also to myself for the sake of a better social future:
"Truly powerful people never explain why they want respect, they simply do not engage someone who doesn't give it to them."
- Sherry Argov, Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl - a Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship
