IT'S OKAY IF YOU DON'T LIKE ME

If I want to be really honest with myself, I have to admit that I tend not to be.

Like most dented and damaged vessels of sullied consciousness, I have lived much of my life mimicking the factions I find most pleasing with a decidedly unhealthy preference for those most obviously cloying.

In short, I want to be liked and have done what it took to make it so.

I would have made a lousy attorney. "Members of the jury, I believe my client is innocent of all charges!  However,  if *you* don't think so, I *totally* understand and sincerely apologize for bothering you. Would anyone like a cookie?"

I suppose I can blame my nearly obsessive desire to achieve mastery over the darkest and most damaging components within my psyche for that unfortunate propensity, but honestly, this taxing and unrealistic quest for sainthood is killing me.

But that is all changing.

While I cannot pinpoint the exact moment that it happened, there has been a shift within me that has been gaining momentum in recent months. What this has meant is that I am no longer willing to tolerate unkindness towards me or to those around me and no longer accepting of the idea that in friendships a lack of equitable reciprocity is normal.

I do admit to owning a dark side and to striking a fair balance between saccharine and sadistic by an equally inborn tendency towards sarcasm, lightly sprinkled with cynicism and festooned with candles of suspicion - not unlike a colorful birthday cake concealing an RDT explosive. 

 And like that cake, I have lain dormant for decades.

Up till now I naively and earnestly extended the invitations, lit up the room, provided the feast, offered the presents and donated the time to party goers who failed to comprehend the sincerity of my affection or to appreciate the effort.

All the while I resisted the impulse to detonate.

 At this point I'm probably one birthday party away from total annihilation but certainly a person that anyone with reasonable access to heart and conscience need not fear. However, for the duplicitous fare-jumpers and bottom-feeding sycophants looking for a free ride, it is party time!

I've reached this point after a grim two-year period of filial eviscerations and the recognition that I'd been summarily scalped and skinned by some long-time friends. Like a feebleminded clerk at a five-star hotel I'd naively offered them free lodging in my heart. They got away with the towels and toiletries and would have stripped clean my soul had I not gotten wise and changed the locks.

And detonated.

But I am not used to fighting back and in the aftermath of this battle for my self-esteem I feel foolish and failed and suffer disturbing bouts of regret for stepping up and saying, "Enough!"  Not because I defended myself - but because it means now that I am not liked.

Too frequently I find that my trust in people has been misplaced, which never fails to leave me grieved over my gullibility and questioning my culpability, and as much as I want to believe that I have survived the wreckage of these failed alliances now that the debris has been removed from my heart and all obvious traces of the relational experience have been wiped clean, I don't think that is entirely true.

It is an odd fact that when souls collide there is an acceleration of curiosity and emotion that morphs into one seemingly solid and reliable bond of unspoken trust and unquestioned devotion. Evidently, this excitement neuters my discernment. I'm a pushover and want to embrace everyone at their word and to rely on my faith that a decency of conscience will provide safe escort through the passage of filial exchange, particularly during the occasional rough seas. I'm currently more than a little confused.

While I'm not quite as embittered or self-destructive as was Heathcliff ravaging the moors and his own soul, sodden with self-pity after the apparent betrayal by his beloved Cathy; I nonetheless shelter a wound that regularly needs dressing, and I've developed a high regard for sleep and for dreaming.

Still, I believe that every little dash of light leads back to the same solar source in the end and that in the meantime there are dreams to be manifested and goals to be met; not the least of which involves the spiritual transformation of the entire planet into a world where division is not an option and love rather than politics, policy and opinion becomes the great unifier.

We'd all be friends then.

For the time being I live with small fissures and tears in my soul and count on my rebounding faith in others as the means toward healing.

I know that if I am really true to my convictions, not everyone is going to like me and I am learning to be alright with that. Whenever I fear that this might lead to a life spent solitarily, I remind myself that being alone is only a state of mind and that being sad about being alone is a choice and one I don't have to make.

Not everyone has to like me.  Respect and consideration do not necessarily mandate affection.

We each have our own work to do while we are here, and often we have to do it without any obvious support, but that doesn't mean that there is none.

It only means that we aren't really paying attention.