Have you ever tried putting someone else’s pain into words?
It might not be your place– which explains why the words are difficult to find. Now imagine also trying to find the order in which to arrange the words you cannot find. The task is almost impossible.
Can you begin to imagine giving yourself fully and completely over to someone else, to something else, and getting nothing in return?
Always trying to measure up?
Always attempting to prove you are worthy? That you are worthwhile?
Imagine giving yourself so completely to something. Changing to meet the demands of that thing. Changing until one day you are no longer the person you were at the beginning. The transformation was not good or intentional.
You didn’t notice the change– it was too incremental. Lost in the ecstasy of love or passion, change was happening without your consent.
How much of you did you pour into the relationship?
How much of you did you pour into the activism? The idea? The school? The family?
How often did you pour?
Was the amount so small that it was impossible to notice?
Was the frequency regular?
Did it become a routine and thus automatic?
Do you not remember it at all?
Can you imagine the pain of the mirror, where only your shell looks back at you?
“Protect your energy,” they say… While sucking the life from you.
It’s a nice thought, said even by those who need to feed on you. Meaningless words told to you. There is no protecting your energy with them. They are here to take, and by God, they will take.
The sad part, you are not blameless only because you gave. You gave too freely. I know it was in your nature to give, but you kept giving and gave some more.
You gave, and therefore you are not blameless. That is sad.
But resentment was building. How could it not?
After giving all you had, you were bound to be empty. It was in that emptiness that you found frustration. The frustration blossomed in the most beautiful sadness, which did burn away, revealing anger — an uncontrollable flame fueled by pain.
The anger is your sadness from the realization that you have no more to give. You are Angry at yourself for not finding more, for not being more, for not being able to accept more pain.
You are angry that you have reached your limits.
You are angry that in your anger, all it would take was a gentle touch, a gentle word from the right people. You are angry because you know neither the touch nor the word will come. Yet hands are still outstretched asking you to give more of what you don’t have.
In this place, some look to faith. But where do you look when you run out of faith?
I would tell you to look to me. As a friend, I want to be enough.
How do I protect my energy and protect you?
The answer escapes me, but I will try.
Just joined your membership on your channel and I’m definitely looking forward to learning more and more from you.
This is DEEP … super deep.
I will make a suggestion. Harriet Tubman may have the answer you are seeking, for you and those you want to help. Faith runs out when it is placed in the wrong object. We want people to grow and change and do better … we give and give and give by faith … but humans getting what they want from us are never going to change because they are getting what they want. Black people put in 500 years of work to a group of people that STILL have no collective gratitude or sense of obligation. Black people who love their communities often give decades and find the same result among the masses. Sometimes, the faith to LEAVE … as a Christian it astounds me how often God told people in the Scripture, “Leave EVERYTHING you are in, and follow me.” Of course, this is RARELY taught in the slave-broken Black institutional church … instead, people have a faith that copes … until it can’t.
Brilliant piece! I’m absolutely positive many people can relate to this. As for me, I always try to understand what other people need, and I find myself automatically accommodating because I think “it’s the right thing to do” to help the other person. I don’t even know why I do it other than I think it should be normal human behavior to operate with a considerate mind, not a passive mind. Most people are social and emotional vampires, though, which is why I like ghosting the world as much as possible to recharge. But it’s true, I need to not be so accommodating. Then maybe I won’t feel the need to keep everyone at such a distance that it makes it so easy to be queen of the cut-off.
But if I’m honest with myself, I must admit that I use that tactic to get from people what I need too. I try to learn what motivates a person, and not in a nefarious way. Still, I guess manipulation is manipulation.
Let me end here and not write my own essay.
Love this! Great piece. It really makes me consider a lot. I didn’t even mean to be so lengthy with my response.