I was raised to be polite and show\u00a0up anywhere I was invited. And then, even if I had a terrible time, even if\u00a0they were obnoxious or insulting, I was supposed to reciprocate. I heard that\u00a0word \u201creciprocate\u201d so many times, it started to grate on my nerves. Being with\u00a0someone I didn\u2019t like wouldn\u2019t make either of us feel good.<\/p>\n
One of the gifts of aging is giving\u00a0yourself permission to not do the things you don\u2019t want to do. To not have to reciprocate. And to absolutely do the things that you do want to do. It would be a good idea to start doing this when we\u2019re young, but we don\u2019t think about it. When we have more years behind us than ahead of us, the idea of an expiration date, of a clock ticking away, makes it feel more immediate. It makes us stop and take a really good look at how we\u2019re spending our time.<\/p>\n
It takes courage to put yourself\u00a0first. We were raised to think that was selfish, that how we treated other\u00a0people was more important than how we treated ourselves. Sometimes it feels\u00a0unfamiliar to be true to myself, but I\u2019m learning to say, \u201cThank you, but no.\u201d I\u2019m
motivated to utilize my precious time in ways that make me comfortable, peaceful,\u00a0happy or excited and to take control of where I spend my time and with whom. I\u00a0decided to only show up if it feels as good or better than being alone.<\/p>\n
These days I decline an invitation\u00a0if I don\u2019t feel like accepting it for any reason. Many of us have come to the\u00a0same conclusion and are practicing the same things I am, but women in my mother\u2019s
generation were heavily programmed to put on the blinders and do what was\u00a0expected of them.<\/p>\n
She lived on the East Coast, I live\u00a0on the West Coast, and we used to have a standing appointment to talk on the\u00a0phone on Sunday mornings at 11. She was an English teacher, I was a writer, so
discussing bestselling books from the LA Times and the NY Times was a natural\u00a0place for us to meet. I would call her, but often, her line was busy at our\u00a0designated time. An annoying friend of hers, Lynn, was talking my mother\u2019s ear\u00a0off and as much as she\u2019d prefer talking to me, my mother refused to hang up. She\u00a0couldn\u2019t say, \u201cI need to speak with my daughter now.\u201d It would be rude, she said,
so I\u2019d have to keep calling her over and over until she said good-bye to Lynn.\u00a0It was irritating and I asked her to please get off the phone when I was\u00a0supposed to call. She said, \u201cOkay,\u201d but she never did.<\/p>\n
This kind of programming shows up in different areas of our lives. During the height of Covid when we were\u00a0isolated in our homes, a friend asked me how I felt being isolated. Her\u00a0question didn\u2019t surprise me but my answer did. I said, \u201cI\u2019m so glad I don\u2019t\u00a0have to hug anyone I don’t want to hug.\u201d This realization helped me recognize\u00a0other things I was doing that I didn\u2019t want to do.\u00a0Calling people back when I didn\u2019t\u00a0want to speak to them. Staying at a gathering when I wanted to go home.<\/p>\n
It can be a drag when we have to\u00a0tolerate people. The drunk uncle, the snooty cousin or the eccentric neighbor\u00a0who corners you with the same old stories. So the question arises: If I don\u2019t\u00a0want to go somewhere, do I lie about having to be somewhere else? Do I tell
them that I don\u2019t feel well? How can I say, \u201cI don\u2019t like being with you,\u201d\u00a0without offending them? An acquaintance of mine told someone she had Covid when\u00a0they invited her to dinner. Something about that doesn\u2019t seem right to me, but\u00a0if she didn\u2019t lie, how would she avoid causing pain?<\/p>\n
If you decide to put yourself\u00a0first, you need to get creative. I usually say, this week isn\u2019t a good one for\u00a0me. Maybe later. Or, I\u2019m busy with work and I need to wait until it lets up. I\u00a0once met a friend for dinner in a restaurant in Beverly Hills. She had a good\u00a0heart, but she talked non-stop. I was eating my salad when suddenly I heard her\u00a0asking me a question. I had no idea what she was talking about because I had\u00a0spaced out. When I was on my way to my car, I realized that if I had to\u00a0disappear in order to be with her, I shouldn\u2019t be with her.<\/p>\n
There are things we have to do like\u00a0going to the dentist or having a mammogram or working out to keep our bodies\u00a0strong and supple. That seems logical. But beyond those kinds of things, it\u2019s a\u00a0good idea to keep the word, \u201cshould\u201d out of our vocabulary. Buddhist nun, Pema\u00a0Chodron, says:<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one else can sort out\u00a0what to accept about yourself and what to reject, what opens up your world and\u00a0what keeps you going round and round in repetitive misery. The\u00a0key to feeling more whole, more connected and less shut off is to be able to\u00a0see clearly who we are, what we\u2019re doing and what we want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doing what we want will open\u00a0the door to the things that heal us. Doing what we don’t want will close that\u00a0door and cause us suffering. If we pay attention to the voice inside that says,\u00a0\u201cI want to\u201d or \u201cI don’t want to,\u201d we\u2019re giving ourselves the gift of remaining
connected to ourselves with an open heart and a peaceful mind. You take care of\u00a0you and let other people take care of themselves. Then everybody wins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was raised to be polite and show\u00a0up anywhere I was invited. And then, even if I had a terrible time, even if\u00a0they were obnoxious or insulting, I was supposed to reciprocate. I heard that\u00a0word \u201creciprocate\u201d so many times, it started to grate on my nerves. Being with\u00a0someone I didn\u2019t like wouldn\u2019t make either of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2694,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693\/revisions\/2694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}