Like a comet pulled from orbit....
I had a sad and rather telling moment today when I found myself agonizing over an innocuous Facebook comment I'd written, trying to second-guess whether it would be misconstrued as an attack, if a fight might start on account of it, if my wording was chosen meticulously enough to avoid these things, and how best to apologize when it inevitably happened anyway and the other party got defensive and blamed me for it.
That's right, a Facebook comment (the most insipid of all forms of human communication) had me so worried that I took an extra break at work to edit the hell out of it, wondered if I shouldn't just delete it altogether, and spent the rest of the day thinking about it.
I know full well the conditioning that got me to this point, and I think I can say with some degree of confidence that this insecurity is something I will always carry. "Who can say if I've been changed for the better?," right? At least I know I'm better at thinking before I speak/write, now, even if it more often drives me to stay silent. Better to say nothing at all than to risk saying the *wrong* thing, isn't it?
I am not over it.
I don't think I'll ever really get over it.
Which doesn't mean I'm still angry. Just resigned, really. I miss the friend I had, but have no delusions that things can ever go back to the way they were. Things change, people change, those halcyon days are gone.
Though I can't help but remember a piece of advice I gave to her, specifically, a whole other lifetime ago. "Don't let someone else's insecurities make you start to doubt yourself." How fitting that now it has come full circle, and I must revisit my own guidance.
Thanks, self. I'll try to remember.
That's right, a Facebook comment (the most insipid of all forms of human communication) had me so worried that I took an extra break at work to edit the hell out of it, wondered if I shouldn't just delete it altogether, and spent the rest of the day thinking about it.
I know full well the conditioning that got me to this point, and I think I can say with some degree of confidence that this insecurity is something I will always carry. "Who can say if I've been changed for the better?," right? At least I know I'm better at thinking before I speak/write, now, even if it more often drives me to stay silent. Better to say nothing at all than to risk saying the *wrong* thing, isn't it?
I am not over it.
I don't think I'll ever really get over it.
Which doesn't mean I'm still angry. Just resigned, really. I miss the friend I had, but have no delusions that things can ever go back to the way they were. Things change, people change, those halcyon days are gone.
Though I can't help but remember a piece of advice I gave to her, specifically, a whole other lifetime ago. "Don't let someone else's insecurities make you start to doubt yourself." How fitting that now it has come full circle, and I must revisit my own guidance.
Thanks, self. I'll try to remember.