Damn. I’m 28 years old. I consider myself to be full grown but I now see that I have a lot more growing to do. And I’m open. And I’m learning. But it hurts to see that I’ve been going about this all wrong. Damn…
I just got off the phone with Raycita. She texted me last night saying she was in Chicago on her way back to Oakland after a week-long training program with her company. “I’ll catch up with you when I get settled.” she wrote.
Oh shit.
I haven’t spoken to Ray in about a month and we are sooooo “Miami” that we knuck and buck sometimes. Our dominant personalities clash at certain times and we both have to hold our tongues and take a step away from each other when we disagree. I really didn’t want to talk to her. One more “just find any job” conversation would push me over the edge, but when she called this morning I rolled my eyes and answered anyway.
“What’s going on with you?” she asked.
“Nothing…”
And then it began. We saluted the divinity within and squared off to begin our match.
We wrestled with each other. She questioned my motives and my game plan. She pointed out some areas that I need to work on like the way I defend myself to people. “Tee,” she said. “When you feel like you are standing up for yourself, what you’re doing is making the other person feel bad. You don’t know how much you hurt Mac by what you said to him and you don’t know how much you hurt Marsha too with what you said.”
“But I was just trying to tell them that how they dealt with me was unnacceptable and hurt me.”
“Yeah but it’s the WAY you said it. You attacked THEM and not the ACTION. It’s not who they are that hurt you, it’s WHAT THEY DID. You do that all the time and you really hurt people. If someone does something to hurt you, deal with that behaviour and don’t blame it on the person. You’re so quick to cut somebody off because they made a mistake.”
We wrestled some more. I tried to hang up with her three times. She wouldn’t let me. “Just lemme finish dawg,” she said. “This is a hard conversation but we have to have it. I know you don’t feel like rules apply to you. I know you feel like you’re different and no one understands you. I read your personality type! But rules DO apply to you. You HAVE to eat! You have to have a place to LIVE! You can’t just NOT WORK!”
I don’t wanna hear this shit from Ms. Cozy in Cali, law school grad, laying the foundation for her dream career, about to buy a new Lexus.
We wrestled and we fought and we fussed and we cussed and we tumbled and we fell off into oblivion. My fist tangled in her hair, her nails deeply imbedded in my shoulder. Neither one of us giving up our belief that we will be heard and understood.
“I just want to find a place where I can grow and be a part of the company. I never find that. I always get pushed out. It never works out. I just want to find my place and I’m tired of starting over. Whenever I’m in a place, it’s always some bullshit. I may never find that place. And I know it ain’t gonna be at the pizza place!”
“Now listen to this. And you don’t have to answer this question out loud if you don’t want to. When you were at that place, the website or whatever, can you honestly say that it wasn’t a job that you could have held on to?”
“I can’t deal with people placing limits on me and talking to me any kind of way Colie! It feels like abuse. I can’t take it and I was miserable! I had to leave. I would have been pushed out at some point anyway.”
“But can you honestly say that you couldn’t have been a success there, if you had put your feelings aside and the way you always feel like people are criticizing you and putting you down? Could that have worked out for you?”
Wait.
“Ok, wait. I think..I think I get what you are saying. All feelings aside…If i had put my feelings and emotions aside and focused on the opportunity…” I started to cry as my voice trailed off.
“If I had focused on the opportunity I had been given instead of my emotions, I really believe that I could have had a future there,” I whimpered. “I can’t believe it. It was the one place where my gift was valuable and they let me do pretty much whatever I wanted to do. If I could have just ignored my director’s consistent fucking opinions about my life and my personality and all that shit..and I focused on giving what I came to give…I could…It could have worked.”
I had my dream job but I let it go because I was running away from what I perceived to be abuse.
This hurts.
I walked away because I couldn’t take the mental drain their opinions and shit were being cast on me but if I had given them all the finger and just…did what I came to do…I could have positioned myself to really grow. And they weren’t going to let me go. They knew my value. They appreciated my input.
I walked away because I am too sensitive and too focused on my emotions to really see the big picture.
“I believe that God has just opened your eyes to the biggest hindrance that has been stopping your success- your emotions,” Raycita said. “Maybe that’s why you keep having those recurring dreams about going back there. It was the place you were supposed to be, Tee. You just had a life changing moment. Now all you have to do is make it right.”
I fucked up.
The next time I am presented with an opportunity, I can’t just go on what I feel. I have to FOCUS on the opportunity that lies ahead. I have to ask myself, “All feelings aside…What can I gain from this?”
Fuck.
What do I do now?