Lessons from a Mama Bear
Talking last night to one of my oldest friends–we’ve been friends since 9th grade–who is a very hands-on mom, and she mentioned that she recently has started taking her oldest son’s cellphone to her bedroom at night, since he was getting endlessly texted by girls in his class. “Endlessly” as in he was receiving texts until midnight or 1am, or even later. Which meant that her son wasn’t sleeping, his concentration was falling, and his grades were starting to take a turn for the worse: unacceptable. Not to mention, a lot of the texts were very depressing, and the emotional impact was obvious and immediate.
Now you reading this blog, may not be a teenage boy–and in fact, given the subject matter of my site, I’d be pretty surprised if you were–but if you yourself are in the process of making changes, or even just thinking about changes, and gathering the courage to believe that you can make the changes, and that you’re worth the effort…well, you might want to be your own guardian, and start giving certain people in your life a wide berth.
Let’s face it: change can’t happen until you believe it can happen. You have to convince yourself. And that’s hard enough. You have to give yourself thousands of pep talks and/or mugs o’ wine, to get yourself ready for battle. Change does not just happen. When people say to me, “Well, Carlota, I’m going to hang out and see what happens”…um. You’re going to do the very same thing you’re doing now–the very same thing that frustrates you–and now suddenly it’s the Universe’s problem to fix you? Good luck with that. Reminds me of people who pray for a Gucci purse. Right, like Yahweh ignores the suffering of children in Syria, but he’s all, “Bitch, yes you deserve that purse; Ima make it happen.”
Change is a long, drawn-out series of steps, big and small, that simply cannot happen if you’re spending all your time beating yourself up. You simply don’t have enough hours in the day to waste convincing other people. I’m not saying you have to dump all your friends who aren’t ecstatic that you’re finally going to write that opera, or open a bookstore, or teach English in China, but it probably would be a very good idea to spend significantly less time with the people who have committed to their misery, and make you feel like a schmuck for choosing happiness. The people who, every time you open your heart to them, look at you like you’re a special kind of stupid.
You know who those people are. The people who constantly beg for your advice, or help, but what they really want is to whine at you and tell you why their situation is so uniquely horrible. The people who try to make you feel guilty for being happy. The people who construe even the most innocuous comment into some insidious passive-aggressive insult. The people who exhaust you. Let those people go.
That may seem lonely and depressing…but aren’t you already lonely and depressed when you’re with them? You’re trying to change your life, that’s lonely enough, you don’t need to make it more difficult by bringing along carry-on baggage that wants you to fail. Be a good mom or dad to yourself, and protect yourself from those people who have so much time to waste, that they want to waste yours. Change is hard; nurture yourself to make it possible.
