You know what's hard for me, what's nearly impossible to come to terms with even after twenty-six years of being beat in the face with it: some people aren't going to like me. NO MATTER WHAT I DO.
Some people will always think I'm too ugly or too fat or too insecure or too liberal or too open-minded or too close-minded or too messy (which, well, they've got a point) or too happy or too depressed or too awkward or too wound up. They'll think my nose is too big or I'm too short or I don't listen to good enough music or I eat at Chili's too often or I make my dog talk or I watch too much reality television and not enough educational programming even though educational programming makes me more bored out of mind than more knowledgeable. Some people will think a million things of me, and they may dislike me for each one, and, regardless, I'd still be breathing in and out, and it would all be okay. It's even slightly self-absorbed to worry about all the ones who don't like me, isn't it? Why would I expect every breathing human to find me witty and likable?
But it's still tough, and it's something I haven't quite hurdled over yet. How to easily be myself while letting everyone else's opinions of me roll right off my back.
What's more, some of my own friends aren't going to like me sometimes. There are so few people in your life who will be with you through everything. Who will support you when you're wrong, who will comfort you when you're whiny and lame, who will defend you to other people, who will fight for you and stand up for you and will like you when you're at your worst and who will never---not for a single moment---have a hidden agenda. When they get annoyed with you, they'll tell you, and when they think you're wrong they'll say, "Hey, I love you, but that skirt is not your best look."
Of all the countless people we come in contact with in our life and the hundreds more we form real relationships with, there are maybe five people who you will ever be able to truly trust to hold your friendship in the palm of their hands without ever crushing it or letting it slip through the cracks in their fingers.
And, that's how it should be, I think. If the miracle was handed out to us all willy-nilly---at the grocery store, the movie theater, while sitting in traffic---it wouldn't be quite so beautiful. We would inevitably take those incredible friendships for granted if our life was chalk full of them.
Some friends are going to talk about you behind your back and some friends are going to let you down. And, funny enough, you'll do all of these things to friends of your own. We're all just as guilty as the next.
And it really is all okay, that some people will never like you, some people will only tell other people that they don't like you and very, very few people will ever tell you to your face when you're bugging them. And, let me tell you, those last ones are the ones you want to drink with because there will be no surprises after that last tequila shot. Well, there may be some surprises but of a completely different variety.
But, still, it doesn't make it easy just because it's okay, does it?
I was talking to Jonna yesterday---who I kind of want to visit and drink strong margaritas with; she just oozes cool and awesome energy---and she referenced this quote from Rocky:
"It doesn't matter how your life looks to other people, it matters how it looks to you."
I've been repeating that to myself since yesterday, and I even repeated it to a few other people, and I kind of want to print it out and frame it in my "writing room" and perhaps put it on shirts and hats because it's just so damn true. No, it's not easy to wrap our heads around, and it doesn't take away the sting completely when we know people are judging us, but our life is our own. And we're the only ones who have to live it.
We may as well enjoy the view even if our neighbors hate what we're doing with the place.
Amen.
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