Give and Take

ALL relationships are a two way street or, rather, SHOULD be. This includes friends, partners (domestic and otherwise), hookups and even parents with their kids. ALL these and every other type you can imagine, necessitate give and take if you wanna achieve hunky-dory, healthy togetherness…and shit.

Are you a martyr of giving? Have you been, intentionally or not, taken advantage of? Do you feel you've been used?

If you weren’t raised in a home where boundaries were identified and respected, you may still find yourself, as an adult, struggling with them. 

Perhaps you were even taught that it’s selfish to say “no” or, that “no” required a lengthy explanation attached to it. 

~ Kristin CicciarelliI

My mother attempted to raise me with this sort of mindset. Be a giver (a totes GOOD thing to be) who NEVER, EVER needs anything (a wholly unrealistic and, frankly, weird and unhealthy expectation). Essentially, she was training me to be a servile groveler, a valet, a lackey. Luckily, at my core, I knew this was WRONG-CITY. I knew, once I left her house, that I totes needed to have boundaries – me and doormatness were not gonna be a good match.

Setting austere, impermeable steel-wall style boundaries can shut people you actually want in your life out. Natch, I learned this the hard way.

On the other hand, when I’ve been all loosey-goosey and haven’t IDed any real boundaries, or have defined them ultra vaguely, I’ve basically broadcast “HEY, take advantage of me, now please!” Learned this one the hard way too – not cool OR terribly bright.

Are you a taker who rarely, if ever, gives back?

A couple of friends and family members have demonstrated that they’re just not up to the reciprocity gig. They can take, they’ve shown that they can easily accept assists but giving back? MAYBE that’s happened but, pretty sure, the moon had to be blue and the offered aid was of the warped and trapezoidal twisted variety.

Mind you, we all take – we need too, fer fuck’s sake. I’ll wager, most of us give back too. I’ve spent a mega load of my 61 years on this spinning orb learning and working toward a balance of the two.

I may never be as awesome – generously giving without being doormat – as Jen, Ten, Michal, Celeste, Jenny, Erin, Felicity OR as spectacular as TAB was but these wonderful people:

• Are abso-fucking-incredible, très graceful examples, they are role models – I learn/have learned so much from them.

• They’re rock solid evidence that good, decent, wonderful people exist. Not everyone’s an assholian, jerkwadian pool of slug shit like our pResident, his crime family and fanbois.

Allegiance, after all, has to work two ways; and one can grow weary of an allegiance which is not reciprocal. 

~ James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name 

Compassion is a verb.

~ Thích Nhất Hạnh