IV. Run YOUR OWN Race

I have to stop this judgment and jealousy.

That’s the thought that instantly zooms into my mind when I see girls and their boyfriends at the gym. 

One day, I looked at this one girl and her boyfriend, trying to smother my covetousness at their hand-holding affections, his smiling words to her, and the fact she had him, period. I looked at her and had to put on a new mindset: her timetable for heartache and ecstasy is different than mine. She is running her own race. 

We are running in our own lanes, and it’s so easy (as you saw) for me to look at her and be angry that she looks so much farther ahead than me. And maybe it’s not even her speed, but the aesthetics of her track suit or the training she received before we left out of the gates.

But, she has specific lessons she needs to learn, experiences to go through, and places she needs to visit—just like I have my own for my life. She’s gone through different situations that have led her to this point in the same way I have my own that have guided me to where I now stand. I’m in one season of my life and she’s on her own journey, running the MPH and conditions of her own race. 

Not only is it viewing people in person reminds me I need to remember my own path before me, but when I sit before the overwhelming statuses on Facebook, the clever sayings on Twitter, and the visual feast of people’s lives on Instagram, my life is vulnerable to a dangerous comparison. You don’t have to understand writing code to manipulate those 1’s and 0’s. You can be selective about what you post, picking and choosing the good, the bad, and the ugly; it’s all about whatever emotion you want from others or the image you want them to recognize you in. 

But, we all have things that wind us—and make no mistake, we ALL do, including the people running alongside us or before the electronic screen we view. We all have our own hurdles to jump over. Our lives all have different lung capacities with according healths of our own. We’re all running in different altitudes! 

Life wasn't meant to be lived with peripheral vision. It was meant for us to focus on the sensation and experiences before us, the things happening in our own lives. Those are the amazing things—because they are ours. Let others inspire you…but, to go out and do your own things! Make no comparisons!

Knowing this idea now, I write off any insecurity, worry, and slight injustice. Whoever has caused my heart to draw back in surprise, it stops and shakes its head, remembering this. They’ve got their own race to run. I’ve got my own race to run; yes, I might have to wait while others zoom by me, but it’ll be worth it when I reach what’s before me exactly how I was supposed to. You’d think the same inputs would yield the same outputs, but not for our lives; the same thing might not work for both races. I can’t go take a regular job or pick up someone who’ll give me a relationship today in the same way it worked for my friends or the strangers who walk beside me. It’s not compatible with the condition of my heart or the status of my motivations! Yes, I want success and someone to fill that picture frame with, but on my own terms and in the course of my own race. Then, it is mine. (:

“Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.”

- Janis Joplin, American musician

III. Opinions Are Just That

She made me feel like a slut.

No, it wasn’t something I overheard; rather, the opposite—to my face. And, no, believe it or not, it wasn’t someone my age. 

It was the assistant principal at my high school. I had first period as a front office assistant my senior year of high school and had just got done taking a stack of notes when she snagged me by the attendance window.

“Honey, where’s the rest of your shirt?” she asked loudly—and in front of four other staff members.

I was confused: I had a long sleeve sweater over a dress (NO cleavage or any suggestion nor any hints of anatomical curves up top), along with brown boots that even kept my knees from blushing. I thought she was kidding. I was stunned. I was confused.

Instantly filling me, as well, was the hate of how affection can be manipulated from its meaning. Like when she put her arms around me and gently touched my sweater, a gift “addressed” to me by one of my puppies for that Christmas, telling me, “Button this up.”

I felt horrible, humiliated, and hurt.

Because she treated me like a number who was arrogant against the black print of the student body handbook or naïve of what modesty is, with this view that one day I’ll know what a wholesome outfit looks like.

And it hurt even more because she didn’t know *me*:

If she only knew that two years earlier I’d given up he—who I thought was the love of my life—because I’d wouldn’t have sex with him and he left me for someone else who would; if she only knew the emotional spiral into depression I took and the physical twist down in the scale’s eyes; oh, if she’d only taken the time to get to know me and learn that at age 18, I still asked my mom if my outfit was appropriate for school; that I never leave the house in something I wouldn’t be ashamed to wear in front of my father; if she, my assistant principal, only knew the girl she was judging was someone at the mercy of the expectations others’ actions had created and now forced her to fight against. 

I cried that afternoon; hurt by her lack of decorum, angered that she thought she could say that and then be unaccountable the rest of the day when my mom marched up there to put her in her place, and instead, my tears were only “shushed” in the front of office for image sake, and instead, was given her e-mail (yeah—that didn’t fly), and even more furious that she thought I was just like everyone else.

Then I wondered what happened to the girl she said that to who didn’t have someone to fight for her—a furious parent defending their child or a self-esteem to know that it wasn’t true. Because even if that girl was wearing short shorts or a low top, she doesn’t deserve to be treated that way; to have someone talk to her so rudely and condescendingly and commit her to a judgment that that girl might not know how to fight off or realize there’s a battle for it. 

Thank goodness I rejected her opinion. Can you imagine where I’d be—what time, talent, and happiness I have and would be wasting—if I let her view lay me out? Especially when she didn’t even remember me on Friday as she greeted me with a happy, “Good morning!” It would have been like letting a hemorrhage flow only to have someone tell you it was only a scratch—and to look and discover it really only was.

Opinions aren’t facts, but we accept them as if they are. We register them with the same weight, accepting the same authenticity, accuracy, and authority. We may discredit those last three items, knowing the source of an opinion to be unworthy or truth’s merit or to know that the content is obviously false, itself, or something in between. Except I don’t know about you, but once I hear something like it, it’s like trying to erase Sharpie over and over; you go over it over and over, but it’s still there, and sometimes you think you can see it disappearing, but if you were looking at it for anyone else, you know it wouldn’t be true. The branding of black ink is still there.

It’s the fact of knowing someone actively thinks that about you; that when you come up, that’s what they reference, that’s what they feel about you. It’s easy to tell others to forget about it, because we know it’s not true. But, it’s personal when its ourselves; instantly, it’s like we’ve fallen into a pit and the only way to climb out is to refute those three A’s—authenticity, accuracy, and authority—and until we do that, we’re stuck. We go over and over it in our minds.

We could test those things

forever.

I’ve long searched for the remedy to caring about what others think. How wonderful it would be to literally not care what anyone thinks; to value others’ opinions so lightly, it’s as though it never existed. Time is the only remedy I’ve found to curing the sting of others’ negative opinions. The elapsing of hours and days dulls the edge and allows us to remove it from the skin of our self-worth; with relaxed surroundings, the blade will finally come out. Instead of constricting and holding onto that dig, the knowledge of our true self-worth swells up; we’re reminded who we are as *we* live with ourselves and see the lies fall against what we know. Our rejection of their opinion releases the dagger. It cannot stay. It is evicted.

That’s why there is a difference between “opinions” and “facts.”

Why We Fight Harder For Our Friends Than Ourselves

I came home from a night out once, heels slapping the face of the kitchen floor and me close to doing the same to another. I set my rectangular interface on the island, the screen of it bright with and even the touch of it, disappointing. Or, rather, disappointment was what was being received that night. 

That night, I was supposed to hang out with the guy I’d been dating—until an empty house with no parents, his friends, and video games turned a good response to “What time you thinking? :)” to “I’m still at my friends sorry.”

My anger was white hot and its flame could sear volumes instead of a text message, the small, blank bubble that was waiting to be filled before me. 

I started drafting my honesty, but that was it—it was just honesty. It was a blank scroll before me; how did I even begin to record this overdue manifesto? When there’s so much to say, that’s when I need to say nothing; I know myself well-enough. 

But, like a business plan that you don’t leave on the shelf, but instead, continually alter it as your information and vision change, I’m constantly learning me.

 A new lesson was before me when in my silence, my mom prodded me. “What would you do if someone treated Mandy [one of my BEST, closest, and dearest friends] like this? Put Mandy in here—what would you do?”

Mandy is amazing—the sweetest, kindest girl with a heart of pure gold. If some guy was treating her like this, there are a thousand things I would do to him and that means I haven’t found one good enough yet to serve in retribution. How DARE he treat her like that! He’s an idiot who doesn’t know what the %#@ a diamond looks like.

And that’s when I realized we fight harder for our friends than ourselves. That’s when I realized everyone saw me the same way I saw Mandy: everyone was ready to light their torches and unzip out their torture cases. 

How could I miss someone like that? It wasn’t a lack of knowing my self-worth that kept me silent or that had landed me in that place. It was my love for him, all my affection that flew to the front of everything. 

The answer lies in this realization. We aren’t in our friends’ shoes; where they have their feet in concrete, we’d be off running. The person I see, feeling no emotion for, and could easily walk away from is someone they can’t let go. So for this realization, step into my heels: This is the guy you’re head over heels for, and you know this situation okay—that’s what makes it all the worse…because you will (and have, note the past tense) chosen yourself first. It was self-respecting, but undeniably lonely. You’ll do it, but the memory is even closer than the fibers on your body.   

Stepping outside the subjective space I was continually sinking in, I drafted a text message with Mandy’s behalf in mind. It was then the fog cleared and I found a vocabulary and composition again. It was then I got angry. It was then the demand for respect entered the message. 

“Honestly, I am beyond disappointed and done with my time being jerked around, it is SO disrespectful and rude. You asked me to hang out and I stayed out for you. That's awesome you and your friends hang out, but please don't toss me aside when you already asked me to get together; there's a life and a schedule and feelings on the other side of your cancellations.  Friends don't even treat each other this way, with no replies to text messages and plans that never come through. It's clear you were spot on about your priorities from the other night, and it's quite telling when you're playing videos and I'm sitting at [insert restaurant], killing time waiting for you and one of the [insert career title] asks me out. I forgot what that priority and attention was like as I've been waiting in the balance for you and it never happens. Enjoy your weekend with your friends & I'm taking that invitation go back to [yes, that place!] tomorrow night.”

I knew to him it would just be words until there was a living threat behind that alphabet. Someone did ask me out that night. I’m monogamous from the moment I like someone, so I had a slight hesitation about including this fact, but it really did illustrate the moment between us. Knowing my words wouldn’t change anything, I had to pull the trigger of truth for the message my friend had inspired me in. 

Q:  Why is it easier to stand up for our friends? We live with ourselves and anything that happens can hurt or better us. Isn’t that what we should fight and care more about?

A: It’s easier to stand up for our friends, because their lives aren’t our lives: we don’t see the risks, we don’t care about image, we’re not worried what he’ll, she’ll, or they’ll think. We abandon fear and we forget all the reasons why we shouldn’t. We do these things because we see that amazing, special, incredible person who deserves a thousand-fold better than what is sitting before them. 

It’s easy because we love them. And it’s also easy because it won’t be us sitting there alone afterwards; it won’t be us trying to build up that belief of, “Yes, I made the right decision,” and believe it with no doubt. It won’t be us there, living with the consequences of defense. 

We dilute our own selves with doubt, variable self-worths, lies we take as truth, until who we are is convoluted to us. We know ourselves and can be sure of us, but to some degree, we don’t get the purest, highest concentrate of who we are. 

We see how amazing our friends, siblings, parents, all those we love are, because we’ve always been looking at them. We don’t walk around looking in mirrors, literal and figurative, to see ourselves. 

But, I’m starting to think we need to.