Haze

be a good girl.
think about others first.
don’t be selfish
or stuck up
or conceited.
play nice.
share.
wait your turn.

it’s your turn now.
go for it.
who cares what other people think?
if it pleases you, that’s enough.

i’m so confused. i’m so damn confused.

write the book you want to read.
comes a time when you have to consider your readers.

so which is it?

if i do something just because i enjoy it, that’s okay, right? well, what if i want somebody else to like it, too?
what if i want somebody else to value my work, my creativity, my contribution?

back in the days when i was trekking around speaking professionally, some high falutin’ fella made money hand over fist by saying something like you can accomplish anything – anything at all – as long as you don’t mind who gets the credit. to which i always thought: bullshit. i mean maybe that’s true on paper, but if i do the work, make the effort, create something that didn’t exist before, by golly i want credit for it.

then somebody throws “ego” into the mix and scolds me for having one.

they remind me that i’m supposed to look the other way, turn the other cheek and all that but hey, let me tell you something: according to my cousin who is Somebody Who Should Know, to turn the other cheek was actually a call to civil disobedience back in the day. it wasn’t rising above and refusing to wallow with pigs knowing that you’d both get dirty, it wasn’t letting yourself be a doormat or a booster seat for somebody else, it was a means of entrapment.

maybe it’s supposed to be enough that i value my own contributions, but maybe that doesn’t always play out in real life. maybe that’s why i’m so angry lately when i get to stewing about aging and leaving a legacy and not having one to leave on account of i’m supposed to be downright giddy with happiness that somebody else took the credit for something i did or said pffffft to something i created or overlooked me cause let’s face it, unless it says something real cute, how many people actually look at the doormat anyway?

sigh.
whoever said aging isn’t for sissies
sure knew what she was talking about.