4.11.16 From then on

     Sometimes people we are close to, or people in our families, give us a hard time. Sometimes they know something is up and they insist we do what would feel best for them and not us.

     Sometimes we are having a terrible time, so terrible we can't talk about it, and they bug us and bug us and we tell them it just isn't a good time and they wont take no for an answer.

     They want another answer. They want us to put away our experience and our hard feelings and our needs and hush the hell up and show up and do and say and disclose whatever it is they need most.

     They are willing to trade being inconsiderately willful, like a cranky five year old at a party, only they are an adult, making adult choices.

     So they go ahead and make that choice, and they bug us and bug us and we have a worse and worse time, staying connected to someone who chooses their own comfort and preferences over the relationship. Over our own wellbeing.

     The problem is, if they are surrounded by family who both suffer from their willfulness, and enable it, and say "Oh, that is just them.", then the willful person fully expects that kind of pandering from all fronts.

     Problem is, we teach others how to treat us. We do. It is our responsibility, and noone else's.

     It is their responsibility to do what they think will have the best outcome they want most, and our responsibility to bring those who treat us well -closer, and those who do not - farther away.

     We still can love lots of people in our lives. But we cannot have them be in such proximity, when they are choosing to push us at times when they know full well it is not kind to us, or good.

     And so we learn. Sometimes, down the road, when they approach us, as if , with some time passed, they can come and do the very same thing, why, we can care about them. Love them. But stay the course of more distance and less access.

     We realize that never again are we willing to choose to be in such trusted proximity.

     Because that is something we each offer to some. To retain that closeness, others must earn it. Their choice, always, whether they understand these things, or no.

Because such a thing holds suffering, when we are full of stress and exhaustion and great challenges, ourselves, trying to be considerate and able and get through a hard patch. Makes no sense to walk on over and say "Hey, you wanna give a go at what you always do, that everyone tolerates from you? " Nope.

     So we learn. Maybe they also learn and maybe they don't. maybe they notice and keep trying to badger us back. Maybe they go around saying to anyone who will listen "Why oh why won't they connect with me anymore?"      Maybe they blame us for unkindness, making belive they never were so hard and inconsiderate. And maybe one fine morning, they realize they blew it and were unkind and insistent and no wonder it's like this now.

     Over where we live and breathe, we love and care. We create the lives and circumstances we respect and believe in and that fit well for us, that contribute to the world we want to be part of improving.

     Sometimes we keep ourselves apart. 

     We hope for the best for them, from then on.