7 posts tagged “quote”

“Sometimes you can't see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.”
-    Ellen DeGeneres

To play it safe is not to play.
- Robert Altman

Virtue is its own punishment.  - Aneurin Bevan

“I’m done making a priority in my life those who make me an option in theirs.” – Tracy Ann Morse

I'm fucking, totally, absolutely, completely fucking done.

That is all.

Respect has room for secrets but not for lies.
- Diana Gabaldon

Well, I'm rereading one of my favorite books, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.  It is, for the most part, brain candy, and then, every so often, like the bubblegum in a blow pop, a gem shows up.  This one, while not outstanding writing, is an idea that I've never heard or seen, but is one so basic that I had to reread it several times. 

One of the things I've learned about myself is that I used to want to know everything about someone.  If I let you in to my world, I wanted to be your complete confidant, the person to whom you told everything.  Now, I didn't necessarily tell you everything about me; actually there was no way I was telling you everything, you know, my walls. 

I've come to understand that secrets are ok.  That no one needs to know everything about anyone.  (say that sentence three times fast) That as long as there's respect, secrets are expected and accepted. 

But it took brain candy to put it into words.
Go figure.

"When someone shows you who they really are, believe them."
- Maya Angelou

I don't much care what people think about me.  It's been one of those things that I've truly come to terms with in myself over the past year or so.  Yes, I went through a bad phase where I hit rock bottom and cared deeply that people liked or disliked me.  But I think everyone has to hit that at sometime in her life to really know who she is.

And to like herself. 

Now, I know how to play the games in life.  The work politics, the social niceties, the little white lies that get us through difficult situations.  I don't think playing those games, hiding aspects of myself to get done what needs to be done (even if getting done is just getting through), but I try to do it as little as possible.  I am who I am.  And most of those that I've shown that to have believed it and remained in my life.  There are those that didn't believe.  My not-soon-enough-ex is one of them.  And there are those that believed and moved on.  This is ok; it's the way it's supposed to be.  Because I don't exist to make anyone but me happy. 

I know that sounds selfish, but I don't care what people think.  I show you who I am - rainbows, clouds, snowflakes and everything else - believe that's who I am.  The good the bad and the ugly.  Accept it and be my friend or don't and move on.  I'm not going to change to be what you think I should be.  I will only change for me.

And I learned that one the hard way.  Which is also how it should be.  No lesson worth learning is ever, ever easy.

"Intimacy is meaningless without barriers to overcome--and to lower."
- Diane Duane

Now, I don't read Diane Duane.  Couldn't tell you what she's written without looking it up (but that's what librarians are known for, right?).  But Mr. B sent me this quote about a year ago when I was having issues coming to terms with the fact that someone that I was in love with (note the "in love" not "loving") had walls higher and more impenetrable than mine. 

I've already blogged about the difference between being in love with someone and truly loving someone.  And in some ways, this quote relates better to that post than the one that inspired it.  I said in that post that I don't think walls are unhealthy, as long as you know they're there and when to raise and lower them to let people in.  And that's what I've been thinking about since the last post.  Those walls.  Not loving or being in love, but true trust and intimacy. 

I let very few people in.  I know I didn't let my not-soon-enough-ex in, but for all those years, I didn't know it.  Because I didn't know me.  I hadn't let myself in.  Which is,  in a lot of ways, what this quote says to me.  You have to know yourself, truly be intimate with yourself, like yourself, before you can lower your walls and let someone else in. 

And that's what I've spent the last year doing.  Getting to know me again.  After so many years of denying me, ignoring me, in some ways destroying me, I have started discovering me.  Letting the walls down for myself and becoming intimate with me.  And this allows me to understand my relationships with others and let them in when I want.  Because I'll never get rid of my walls - I'll never trust completely or let someone totally in (I don't understand people who can) - but understanding them is huge.