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As a proud Generation X, I admit that I don’t always understand or agree with these younger generation’s methods and madness. Like the whole work life balance thing? Where they refuse to kill themselves at a job in order to maintain a healthy balance between work and play…um, excuse me?? Where is the part where you kill yourself for years at this job, barely appreciated, until you one day make a comfortable wage and have outlasted all the curmudgeons who finally retired so that your office environment isn’t a pit of vipers anymore? As born and bred workaholics, we find the concept of a work life balance as a novelty idea that clearly doesn’t apply to us. There is just too much work to be done.
One area
where they do excel is, and I have a lot of admiration for, is their ability to
draw hard lines in the sand. They are really out here drawing up boundaries like
Rand McNally mapping out the road atlas. This new generation is forcing people
to respect their limits and they have no qualms about cutting off toxicity at
the root, even if it’s family. This is where Gen X, and many Millennials even,
struggle. See, we were raised with the saying that “blood is thicker than water”,
which loosely translates to “Of course you have to deal with their shit, they’re
blood.” I’m not talking about “Aunt Cathy has a creepy precious moments porcelain
doll collection but we look the other way because it’s a quirk”. No, I’m
talking about “Of course your relatives will guilt, gaslight, and emotionally
abuse you, but you will deal with it because we aren’t raising no sissies in
this house.”
(Seriously, sometimes I wonder what
the hell our parents were thinking when they were raising us. But that’s another
blog for another day.)
A few
years ago I started to channel that boundary energy, although it came with a
truckload of guilt. (Another generational trip wire that us X’ers get hung up
on.) After decades of being a people pleasing doormat, I started to get a
little bit of a backbone. It was slow growing though, so it looked funny for a
few years. Misshapen and bent, a little sad and stunted, but I kept plugging
along and holding my ground like these younger groups are teaching us.
And
then my daughter passed away.
I have found a lot of perspective since her death. I find myself matching energies now. I don’t go out of my way anymore, trying to mend fractured relationships and friendships when they are floundering. Because there was one very important thing that I learned these last few months and it’s this: Those who want to be in your life will find a way to connect. It won’t be a one-sided relationship where you are the only one making the effort or making the contact. If they care about you, and they haven’t heard from you, they’ll reach out and make sure everything is ok. If you’re lucky, you’ll ave a few people who refuse to let you go into that dark night without a fight.
Another important thing that I have
learned is that the family you surround yourself with might not be blood, but
the family that you’ve chosen for yourself. And that is ok too. I spent many
years trying to have relationships with people out of familial obligation. It was
exhausting trying to convince myself that a relationship with these people, who
didn’t care about me at all, was worth the time and effort. Once I gave myself
permission to let them go and not feel guilty about it, it was extremely satisfying
and freeing. (Ok, ok, not so much on the not feeling guilty thing. That’s still
a work in progress. But the guilt is not crippling now, just slightly suffocating.
See? Progress.)
We only have a finite amount of
time on the planet. (Unless the ocean aliens are here to provide us with the formula
for immortality?? No? Eh, it was worth a shot.) I am not going to apologize for choosing
to spend that finite time with people who love me unconditionally, those who
make time for me, and those who have the same sarcastic snark humor as I do. And
vice versa because I’m not reverse typing that whole thing out again.
Also, I am done apologizing for not liking tacos. I’m sorry but it’s just not my thing. Get over it. Aw dang it, that was an apology. I take it back. I'm not sorry it's not my thing. So there.
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