We know, deep down we know, when something is not for us.
We meet someone and in a short time, if not in the first few minutes, we know that that guy or that relationship is not for us. We get a job and in a few days we already know that place is not for us. We even do this with clothes, shoes. It wasn\’t until a few months ago that I realized that a shoe I\’ve had for six years and used to love was squeezing me. Either my foot grew, which would be a rare case at 36 years old, or it always squeezed me and I never let myself be noticed, perhaps because it is a very beautiful shoe in the eyes of the beholder. Which is terrifying, because people always know, but insist, for various reasons.
Less than two months ago I got the news that my best friend was getting married in a month. It was tough at the time. I went after a dress on EBay. I found one, cute and cheap. The dress never arrived and a week after the wedding I went looking for another one, also online. I found one that I didn\’t like as much as the first one, but it was also cheap and would arrive in two days. The dress arrived and along with it my frustration. The fabric was cheap and awful. My friend deserved better and so did I. I ran to the internet again, but this time to Amazon, which is usually a little more expensive, but as long as I liked it, the price didn\’t matter to me anymore. I found one, bought it, and it arrived the night before the wedding. The first thing I did was taste it. It wasn\’t perfect, but it looked luxurious and had a good fit. Liked it. The next day I only heard compliments. I kept thinking about how much stress I could have avoided if I had already bought this one instead of the second one, which I didn\’t like very much because of the photo. But, like many times in my life, I was trying to serve something that wasn\’t for me.
Interestingly, my favorite fairy tale has always been Beauty and the Beast. I loved the idea that behind an ugly, scary mask lurked a kind, gentle person. Indeed, we all have light and shadow. The perfect Beauty herself is actually a manipulator with her altruistic way of wanting to help the Beast to be more polite. I just don\’t remember at any point the ugly animal asking for her help or even saying that he wanted to be changed.
Ah, but this mania of looking at the ugly and seeing the beautiful, looking at the brute and seeing the sensitivity, looking at the fear and seeing the courage I always had. Yes, it\’s a quality. But insisting on something or some situation because you see the good side of it is often just an argument for not facing that, no matter the good side of the thing, the bad side is very bad for you. It\’s often a fear, because if it makes you feel really bad, there\’s no other way out but to change that and changes are frightening. But above all, it is a cowardly act against oneself to continue putting up with, self-flagellating, using countless good excuses for your inertia.
And how difficult is it? We go beyond our own limits by doing this, by trying. Just like it was hard to make the decision to block the last guy I was trying to date. So is how hard it was to leave the last job I was trying to fit in. But I already knew, I always knew, that it wasn\’t for me. Nor one neither the other.
The night I met this guy I couldn\’t sleep. My body was restless, my mind anxious. And I know this panic reaction of my body very well. A defense, a way for him to say baby, it\’s wrong, open your eyes, Bela!. Almost the same with work. Badly slept nights, no desire to get up to go to work, desire to cry with such rudeness and contradictory attitudes of people in that place. And a voice inside me saying \”it\’s ok to give up, it\’s not for you\”.
But it took a little while (not long at all, despite the intensity of wear and tear on both relationships) for me to tell them both to fuck their asses, which ended up happening at the same time. And as scary as it may sound, it was also a relief! Whatever the beauties of these two situations were, they were nowhere near more beautiful than the effort I was putting into making them work.
Good side, Bella? The good side is mine and no endeavor should go beyond the limits to keep him safe and sound from anything that harms him.
Princess complex? No more. Just the will to live where I fit in, share my happiness with those who do the same and keep playing the fuck for what is not for me. And so yes, being happily ever after ???