I Love You But I. Just. Can’t.
Letting love include myself.
I have had enough. Today is it not about some unfortunate circumstance or moment — I have had enough of myself. I accepted things that were not true and were not acceptable. I heard things in my heart that were unhappy and I hushed them. I had dreams and I chose not to build them closer into my reality. I knew I had longings and I did not choose to try to further identify them and be more intelligent about figuring them out.
I cannot stay the same person that I was decades ago. For better or for worse, life happens to me and I respond with decisions that cause me to grow in new directions. I choose not to feel shame about that. I choose not to try to balance who I was with who I am now.
I have had enough of spending myself on other people to the point of being in deep need on the inside when I did not have to be. I love being generous. I love making other people happy. I love doing something so that someone else does not have to hurt the same way I have hurt at certain points. But I am tired of doing those things to the point that I am lost in places that are sacred to someone else’s journey and that they need to figure out for themselves further.
Surrender doesn’t mean giving up. It means letting go of what one can’t change and changing what one can… As recovering Nice Guys begin to take responsibility for how they let people treat them, their own behavior begins to change. As they stop reinforcing things they aren’t willing to tolerate, the people around them are given the opportunity to behave differently. This gives relationships a chance to survive and grow.
- Dr. Robert A. Glover in No More Mr. Nice Guy
I can’t do certain things for others that I would like to do; I just don’t have that power and I have had enough of expecting myself to. Love has a very sacrificial quality to it and that is honorable, but it is also honorable to be humble and accept your limits. I do have limits and I have enough of acting like I don’t. I reject the pressure to think more highly of myself than I ought to and to think that I can do ridiculous things that I cannot do. It is not about ability or lack thereof or desire or lack thereof; it is simply accepting reality.
I accept that there are a lot of times where I need to let my loved ones be on their own journey in their own way no matter how much I want to fix something for them. I accept that I need to make a better effort at considering how to prosper in my own journey. You can be highly together with people you love and still have boundaries where your journey is your own and their journey is their own.
Sometimes the best gift you can give someone is to let them do their own work to be a better version of their self and go do your own work to be a better version of your own self. There are certain moments where the best and highest thing you can do is to make yourself the priority — you’ve got this!
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About Andrea Wilburn
My life is determined to be full of uncertainty but I keep moving forward anyway. I hope that what I have learned from my experiences will benefit others. Writing is one way I hope to achieve this.
