I feel like this is fuming inside of me, so listen closely.
Other people’s actions, words, and behaviors have nothing to do with you.
Stop making excuse for shitty people. Shitty people, doing shitty things, with shitty excuses, and shitty responses. Stop blaming yourself for how people treat you. Stop making excuses for them. Stop beating yourself up when they don’t call. Stop recreating situations in your head, to figure out your missteps. Stop crying at night when they seemingly engage with everyone else but you. Stop wondering what you could have done better to make those people be better to you. Stop convincing yourself that you are a bad person because someone else is treating you badly. Stop saying that you deserve to feel this way. Stop letting people steal your joy. Stop sending messages and starring at your phone for days wondering if their cell service provider is down. Stop looking for read receipts and wondering if there was a glitch. Stop having sleepless nights. Stop getting pimples for people who won’t even call you back. Stop letting situations that you cannot control strip you of your happiness. Stop saying that you are not enough.
We are only responsible for ourselves. Are we perfect? No, not at all. But can we work on ourselves? Yes, absolutely. The last few months I have stood next to people, myself included who have damn near begged to get through to people who seemingly wanted nothing to do with me. I’ve watched my friends cry and beat themselves up for other people’s awful behavior. Childish, selfish, rude, ignorant, disingenuous, hurtful, shady behavior. And instead of taking that as a clue to what type of hoodrat no good broke down POS that they are, what do we do? We take it all on. We tell ourselves we are awful humans who deserve to be treated badly. We say that had we done this or that differently, maybe he would call, or maybe she would return my message, or maybe we’d be together, or maybe they would want to talk. We keep reaching out, we keep checking social media, we keep wondering, we keep doubting ourselves, we keep stressing, we keep saying that somehow we are worthless. We take the words, the words that are temporary, and we take them on, writing them with permanent marker on ourselves and then, we start to believe that it’s true.
You might have messed up. You might have done something that you regret, but no one deserves to pay for the mistakes of their past for the rest of their lives. And the people who love and care for you would never make you feel any way other than loved and supported, and human. The people who really care for you would put in as much effort to make things right. To clear the air. Or to simply bring closure.
Each and every person on this Earth, and for damn sure each person reading this on my timeline, is deserving of the world. And no amount of mistakes, and missteps and miscommunication warrants someone being flat out shitty to you. If you’ve made a mistake, apologize. Once, maybe twice. But don’t beg. If you think you could have acted better in a situation, take cliff notes, and adjust next time, but don’t let people continue to bring it up over and over again. Reach out, be there, send that text, or that message, or even call, once or twice. But when they don’t answer, when they show you that you mean nothing to them, know then that you're worth more than that. And step back. Wipe your hands clean of the situation and move on. Hope for the best, pray for them, love them from afar, but love yourself enough to know that that person, those people, aren’t there for you and no longer hold you or your energy time or emotions in their best interest. How someone treats you, says more about them, then you.
So own your worth. Speak your truth. Treat others with respect and refuse to tolerate being treated with anything less yourself. Protect yourself, love yourself, and forgive yourself. Bounce back from mistakes, apologize to people, scream if you have to, and tell people what they mean to you, tell people that you could have done better, tell people you are sorry, and remind them where your intentions lie. But also, tell people that they’ve hurt you, tell people that you deserve better. Teach people how to treat you, by being good to yourself. Communicate with people. Don’t come to the conclusion of a relationship alone. Don't let Trump's America make you feel bad. Don’t let people’s actions break you. Don’t’ let work break you. Don’t let failed relationships break you. Don’t let miscommunication break you. Don’t let peoples words make you feel less than. Don’t let people’s absence make you feel you don’t deserve love.
Speak your truth.
Know your worth.
Everything is not your fault.
Everything is NOT YOUR FAULT.
You deserve a Beyoncé amount of love, even when you fck up. So remember that.