A couple of weeks ago, I was berating myself for not being good at boundaries. My therapist kept asking me questions, pulling out specifics (like it’s his job or something, weird), until I saw something new:
“Hey, wait… Maybe… I think… You know what? I’m not bad at having boundaries. I’m pretty good at it. I was just bad at having boundaries in my marriage. In this particular relationship.”
He nodded.
The top row of my bookshelf is a post-divorce self-help litany, a row of titles like Breaking Free and Emotional Resilience and Codependent No More.
I have read about myself on many of those pages.
Sometimes I get so angry at myself for doing what women are taught to do: adjust, adapt, make yourself fit.
I’m a good student, quick to grasp the concept, eager to please.
Don’t look for the space that fits you, no; instead, disassemble and reform yourself to fit into the space that’s available.
Got it.
Several years ago I started a new year’s tradition of choosing a phrase as a marker for what I wanted to embody and learn in the year ahead. On January 1, 2019, the phrase I chose was walking in my own authority.
