"You and I get so damn dysfunctional, we start keeping score..."

I saw my therapist today. She told me how well she felt I dealt with my mother. When I noted that I could have done better, she told me that it wasn't about being perfect, it was about improving.

I have been thinking about that a lot today. I feel like I am in a situation where someone (not my mother) keeps standing on my foot. I have said, "Ow, quit it.". I have tried to explain why I don't like having my foot stepped on.  "You are stepping on my foot, stop" seems like it should be sufficient.

This person stepped on my foot yesterday, hard. It was mostly inadvertent and due to a misunderstanding, but they still stepped on my foot. Frankly, I am sick and tired of people stepping on my feet. I don't care about the why anymore. I just want to stop being stepped upon.

In therapy today we discussed that I would like to approach my life from a different perspective. I am not in this world to be liked. I am not teaching so my students will like me. I am not here so people can step on me. There is a lot of good I can do in this world, but I can't dance if people keep bruising my feet.

This is really an addendum to my previous post, I guess. I am just trying to figure out how to apply this to my teaching practice, my day-to-day life and my relationships. It's not a natural inclination and after years of being good ole' reliable Rachel, it's hard to tell people no.

So, to applaud myself, I told a friend no, that I couldn't get involved in Renaissance Faire this year, I simply don't have time. I have a potential compromise, so I might still be able to attend for at least one weekend as a participant. I also asked a friend for a raincheck on lunch today. There were puppy complications to attend to, and I decided that I shouldn't overwhelm myself. In both cases, the friend was understanding and apparently they don't hate me because I cancelled on them.

I think I am just going to focus on not getting my foot stepped upon and no longer try to explain it to people. It doesn't seem worth the energy and it doesn't prevent some folks from causing me pain.

So, there's some shoving I have to do.

Today's song (does anyone even notice these things? I suppose it doesn't matter) was playing as I was driving back from IKEA today. It reminded me that even when I know that things are bad for me, I still keep doing them. It's not about being perfect, it's about improving, even if the steps are incremental. I know the song well, but I had never seen the video before today. Improvement is great, but too little, too late just means I will feel bad when I leave. It doesn't prevent me from deciding I should.