The problem isn’t my demeanor.
I know how to pick my battles. I am fair, I am rational, and I will not let myself burst from the pins and tacks thrown at me.
When they laugh at me, I look straight ahead, mouth pressed into a thin line, expressionless under a mask, and I walk. Away.
When they ignore me, I bite my cheek and focus on what I need to. What I’ve got to get done, who I have to care for, and who cares for me. I have goals, ambitions, things to look forward to, and I will not let them break me.
Sometimes they give me moments of attention and then snatch it away. It hurts every time, and although I always need a moment to curl up under my covers and nurse my wounds, I keep it to myself. Laugh it off. Don’t show it. I have to be the picture of confidence, the definition of “unbothered”.
Not have to. Want to, more than anything.
I take every bullet thrown at me and bear it. It’s hard sometimes, but I do it. And on the outside, I can mostly keep my cool. I continue to treat everyone around me the way I would want to be treated: with kindness, patience, and understanding. I’m nice, too nice, some would say.
But again, that isn’t the problem.
I understand why I handle things the way I do. I’m sweet, and I’m good, and no one should take that away from me. Part of me loves that I can be like this, that I can put myself out there for other people and continue to shower the world in kindness.
No, the problem isn’t my demeanor.
It’s that people tend to mistake it for complacency. For weakness.
Yes, part of me is a sensitive girl who runs from confrontation, does not stir the pot, continues to be the keeper of peace. It’s the logical thing to do, the wiser course of action, of course.
But the other part of me, the part that used to let myself be walked all over like a dirty welcome mat? She is unforgiving.
I’m not just letting stuff happen to me. I’m not over here thinking, “Oh, it’s fine, tomorrow’s a brand new day, right?”
No.
Whoever said to forgive and forget can speak for themselves. Because what does that mean?
It means that the abused need to grow thicker skin and learn to not let the bad things get to them, while the abusers get to “grow out of it” and “become better” with the passage of time. No one has to teach them their lesson. They just grow up and move on. And the rest of us? We’re left to pick up the pieces.
I get hurt, and I have to be the better person. I have to forgive people for wronging me, understand that some of them have changed for the better, and move on. I have to go through the difficult mental and emotional process of unlearning all of the trauma-induced responses I have as a result of the way I’ve been treated in my past. But they just get a slap on the wrist, a “Don’t do it again!”, and then move on with their lives?
No.
I don’t care.
I don’t care if they would no longer laugh in my face, I hope someone makes them feel as ridiculed and embarrassed as I did.
I don’t care if they wouldn’t ignore me anymore, I hope they learn what it feels like to be left out, to be overshadowed and cast out.
I don’t care if they aren’t wishy-washy with their attention anymore, I want someone to play with their feelings like the strings on a harp and see how they feel.
I want them to learn their lessons the hard way for the sole reason that I and so many other good people like me have had to learn it that way. I want life to flip them over the way they flipped mine.
Maybe that makes me a bad person. I would still say I don’t wish any harm on those who don’t deserve it, but for all the people in this world that hurt others and then got away with it scot-free, got through it all easy? I hope they learn.
I am kind because I want to make the good happy, not to give the bad an easy ticket out. Let’s make that clear.