I’m tired of being disappointed.
It’s been happening so much lately that I’m ready to crash out and never speak to the next person who lets me down or makes me feel disrespected.
Knowing the universe, it has been purposely jabbing me repeatedly where it hurts because it wants me to look at the core wound and work through it.
It just feels so raw right now. I’ve been experiencing a lot of grief and loss, and these are the times when you’re most vulnerable and you need others to show up for you.
I hate reaching out to people for support.
I grew up having to do everything on my own, and learning to lean on others has been a big learning curve for me.
I’m used to being the strong one.
So when I finally let my walls down enough to admit that I need some extra support and I’m met with a half-hearted effort, it really stings.
I can respect honesty and hard truths. It’s the excuses and lack of accountability that hurt.
And it’s hard not to be frustrated with myself for falling into the same pattern of trusting the wrong people.
It even makes me wonder if these people are just mirroring my own actions. Am I really that inconsistent and unreliable when they need me?
I know that’s not the point of all of this, though.
It feels like the bigger lesson here is that I have to get used to people disappointing me, regardless of the season of life I’m in, the person in question, or the amount of love I have for them.
I have to learn to cope with disappointment because I will never have any control over other people or the choices and mistakes that they make. Not to mention that maybe I have unrealistic expectations of them, or my love for them clouds my vision of who they actually are and their capacity to hold space for me.
So now the other big question is, how do I cope?
Do I completely remove them from my life where I can? Do I block them and never speak to them again? How do I respond when they reach back out after icing me out for days or when they consistently fail to keep their word?
I understand things happen. But if it’s a behavior that someone continues to engage in repeatedly, that constitutes a pattern. And in a time when I’m working so hard to build consistency, actions like these are so disconcerting to my nervous system.
It’s hard to give people grace during a time when the wound is so raw and any little jab makes me feel like I’m bleeding profusely. To them, it may seem like no big deal or some minor offense. But to me? Who has been let down since I was a kid by the most important people in my life, time and time again?
It feels like the f*cking worst.
So how do I deal?
Do I have to continue exposing myself to these people with more boundaries in place and try to learn from the experience? Or is the lesson to learn when enough is enough and walk away?
I know there’s no real way to know until I find myself there again. I have to learn to listen to that quiet inner voice that tells me what I need to know.
It’s just tough to hear her at times when I feel so overwhelmed.
All I know is that I’m trying really hard to stay grounded, and having to contend with the other people in your life makes things a lot more complicated.
I’m grateful that life has shown me, time and again, how resilient I am. No matter how bad something seems or how crappy it feels, I know I will be able to come out on the other side of it.
It just feels really heavy right now, and I could use some TLC from my people.
I hope I can learn to vet them more carefully from now on.