the length of waves

 

the fool with the golden rule.

The first life lesson I ever learned was the golden rule. I remember reciting it with my mom over and over and imbedding in my tiny little brain the importance of treating others the way you wished others would treat you. How to serve as a lighthouse with a golden beacon that shed goodness upon everyone that was living in the dark. How that maybe, just maybe, if you set an example people would follow suit. And it was beautiful. I was a wide eyed girl; the darkest brown ringlets, the best of posture, asking strangers turned best friends if they’d like to sit next to me on the rug during story time. Sure, I had my elementary kindness slip ups. Pulling chairs out from under my friends, laughing when Justin threw Danielle in to the imaginary soup of things we hated, and later writing things I certainly regret in to one of those electronic “My Diary” contraptions, that I can never erase because I made my password some combination of Pekkle Pochacco, because goddamn Sanrio was a real life thing and spelling is hard. But that was my 1%. The 99% rest of my time was spent hitting the sale section at Mervyn’s (RIP) to use my allowance that I had been hoarding so I could buy a few dozen gifts from the toy section for my classmates at Christmas. Inviting the boy with autism and a wheelie backpack that everyone made fun of to my birthday party and spending every night talking to him on the phone for a month because my phone number was listed for the RSVP. Sitting at lunch with the person sitting alone because my mom told me I would never know what it was like to be lonely and I never wanted anyone else to know either. But as the years have passed, the bags under my eyes have grown, my ringlets have turned to tangles, my posture to a hunch, I find myself asking nothing of anyone. Like the heart wrenching scene in 500 Days of Summer, my life has begun to play out in the dramatic contrast of expectation versus reality.

find what you love and let it kill you.

You know that saying, “kill ‘em with kindness?” It’s great. I believe it. I’ve been in customer service my entire working career, and man, am I good at it. Someone screaming in your face for something absolutely – beyond a doubt – no where near your fault or control? Cool. Stick your hand out. Shake theirs. Introduce yourself. Silence. Take a moment to be in their shoes. Remember what it’s like to be human. Remind them you are, too. I have spent the past fifteen years of my life absorbing issues that aren’t mine. Redirecting them. Resolving them. Turning something shitty in to something fucking incredible. And I love it. I have loved it. But as it turns out I’ve been doing it for over thirty; I’ve also been doing it my entire personal life.

The thing is, here, that this thing you (I) love will actually kill you (me) instead. That after so many interactions, so many absorptions, so many “I’m here for you whenever for whatever”s, you’ll begin to realize how much you need that, too. You’ll notice some people aren’t good at it, some people can’t see it, some people just can’t find the time to care, and some just can’t figure out they need to. And you’ll lose sight of it. And without anyone ever understanding and in some cases even knowing you’ll lose it yourself. Recently, in a phone conversation with one of my favorite humans, as I cried in to the abyss of my car that bluetooth picked up and sent over three hundred miles away, I learned a very valuable lesson. In the moment I caught my breath, gasped for new air, he told me something I wish I had heard so many years prior. “If at any point you feel someone is taking advantage of your kindness, please pay attention to it.”

And it hit me. And I did.

the terrible two.

The thing about this mental break I’ve had recently is, I mostly just blame it on myself. Kind is what I’m good at, it’s what I like to be, what I want to project, what I wish more people were. Really, it’s just who I am.  It took one text and the first twenty minutes of a two hour podcast to reinforce that same point. The podcast was recommended to me by another lifetime favorite. Another lighthouse in the dark. Grace personified. She sent me the link accompanied by, “if you have two hours to spare, I think you’d find this episode super interesting. and I’m curious to know what number you think you are and I feel like I might have a hunch.” She hates capital letters so chill on shaming my quotation, you guys. She also knows how silly the thought of me having two hours to spare is. But you know what, I found those two hours. I found them while in the waiting room during my mother’s surgery, at an hour I wished to not be awake, covered in a blanket that she made the nurse give me because somehow I was the one she was worried about. The podcast was about the enneagram, a word I had never heard before, and one that jolted my perspective on personalities, specifically mine, instantly. If you are also not familiar, the enneagram is a model of the human psyche that essentially categorizes every human in to one of nine personality types. You can have separate “wings” of your personality, but there is one number that makes up the most of you. I decide I am a two, with pretty much zero doubt about it; I know this as soon as the voice starts breaking it down. I text said recommender of the episode good morning and that I think I know which number I am. She greets me with, “good morning. you’re a two.” There are still no capitals.

And what is a two, you ask? A two is a “helper”. A two’s basic fears and basic desires are both based in love. The enneagram institute explains that twos are, in brief, “empathetic, sincere, and warm – hearted. They are friendly, generous, and self sacrificing, but can also be sentimental, flattering, and people pleasing.” Cue my swooping my jaw up off the floor c/o a quite completely accurate breakdown of how I have lived my life. And I wasn’t mad about it. I felt proud about it. Yes. A two. That’s me. I look down at the blanket covering my body and I know exactly where I learned it from.

It’s the part that followed that got to me. In order to understand yourself as a whole you’ve, believe it or not,  to look at the whole picture. Not just the good, joy bringing, heart warming, complimenting side of things, but the underlying issues that occur in that kind of permanent lifestyle. The episode continued on to explain how twos are unaware that others don’t have the same instincts in understanding others needs, and essentially, if they want their needs met, they are going to have to ask for it. This goes against everything I believe; this is a hard thing for me to grasp. I find this somewhat entertaining as I have also spent a good chunk of my life learning and understanding the differences in people; their thoughts, mentalities, and values. And I still struggle here. This is why the institute is not shy to point out that twos often have “enormous expectations and unacknowledged emotional needs.” And that, my friends, is the shitty part about being a number two.

I get it from my mama (and my papa).

It has always been easy for me to see the selflessness in my mother. It took me too many years to see it in my dad as well. But they both have it, they both live it, they both give. And give. And givveeeee. That’s what they do. That’s what I was raised to do. In a lifetime where I have little to hang on to from both of my parents (other than this sweet DNA of mine), this personality trait has now skyrocketed to new levels and sentimentalities. I am my parents. And also my own personal psychologist, analyst, cheerleader, and bully. Believe me, I see the issues in the way I have chosen to navigate my personal relationships. To root my happiness in creating it for others, to build people up while I’m still here scratching my head staring at the maps of my own foundation, to try to fill other’s cups when mine is teetering on empty pretty much all. of. the. time. But, it’s me. And though “but” is normally used for excuses I don’t have one. Sure, I could stop being so kind to people. That might help this earthquake of a disruption I’ve felt over the past couple of weeks. I could stop caring, stop investing, stop getting to the root of other people’s things to help them grow. But that isn’t me. In the way we all strive for the things we want and when we want them badly enough we accept any and all consequences, I’ll take it. I couldn’t really find the reason I wrote this. Mostly I just want all y’all ones and three through nines to be gentle. To know that there is a two out there rooting for you, wanting you to see your worth, loving you unconditionally. And that there’s a two out there that needs you, too. That doesn’t know how to ask for it because they don’t understand that they have to. That needs more support than they’re currently given and maybe it comes in the form of “how was your day” and “are you feeling happy” and probably in mashed potatoes, too.