Be disappointing
There are times in life when we just have to allow others to be disappointed with us.
Recently, a friend of mine had heard things about me from a mutual friend. Unkind things. Immoral things. Bad, bad things. My friend said she didn't want to:
tell me what these things were
ask if they were true because she didn't want to be disappointed
listen to my answer because she didn't know if she could believe me
Naturally, I went on the defensive. Defending myself against whatever heinous crimes these might be. Just as I was about to put up my dukes, a voice in my head said Shut up. Grow up. Don't play. So I shut up. Someone's pants were on fire and it smelled. Someone needed some of my Citizen M soap to become a nice-smelling human being again.
Citizen M Soap
I wouldn't play a liar-liar-pants-on-fire game. I wouldn't be bullied. And most of all...
I would allow my friend to be disappointed in me.
Which super sucks because I have fears of rejection. But she said I was indefensible on these mysterious sins so I opened space by saying nothing and not defending myself. Go head. Figure it out. Sit with it and this tiresome, juvenile story as long as it feeds this snag in your soul. Learn from it. Move on from it. Or don't. I'm tapping out. Why on earth are people talking about my life in LA when I LEFT TWO YEARS AGO? As if some creepo is whispering I know what you did last summer in my ear.Just so we're clear, I was doing Christophe last summer. Boo-ya! And the summer before that, sadly, I wasn't doing anybody. Because I was lonely and miserable and afraid of being disliked by people that never really liked me in the first place, and of being disappointing to those I liked a lot.
If anyone should be disappointed here it should have been me with myself.
But that doesn't stop the rumour mill. Nosireebob!
If I could go back, knowing what I know now, and actually do all those terrible things I was likely accused of doing, I would have done more of them! It would have be FANTASTIC. I would have LIVED IT UP. I would have went THERE and done THAT... MANY TIMES!!! I'd have tossed in EXTRA bad things for good measure! Mostly because it would have probably been fun, but now also a little out of spite. If I’m going to be accused of things I didn’t actually do, why not go ahead and do them? Might have been fun.
None of this matters anyway. One bridge burned. Maybe two. Maybe more. Go ahead, be disappointed.
I'm busy being somewhere else and living by the rules of Diane Sawyer's dad:
Do something you really love that you would do anyway.
Do it in the most adventurous place you can.
Make sure that it helps other people. And if you feel there's a genuine need for it, and that through that need you can help other people, you're home. (Which is kind of what my letters are turning out to be.)
So that's what I'm doing over here in Paris. And dear reader, please, for the love of God, go ahead and do what you need to do to be proud of yourself, even if it means disappointing others.
