Its not You...... Its Me....No Really

Sitting in a very hot plane, waiting to take off.

Minutes pass......

Finally the LAST passenger makes it onto the plane.

More minutes pass.....

The flight attendant makes an announcement, "The plane is overweight, would anyone like to volunteer to stay behind in exchange for a free voucher?"

Everyone looked around at each other but not one volunteered. This was an international flight that only flew once a week, on Sunday.

Finally, the flight attendant called a name. The women, who just happned to be the LAST passenger to board stood up.

"The plane is overweight and someone is going to have to go and well........ ITS YOU."


and that's how that ended.


It wasn't that this woman was morbidly obese, in fact she was rather small. There wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with HER, it was the plane that had the issue. The plane could not sustain her weight, not because she was inherently heavy, it was because the plane was overloaded.

When I used to feel the need to cut someone out of my life, I more than often attributed it to something THEY had done or how THEY were but, in this solitary adventure of  maturing (an often exhausting one I might add), what I'm finding is its ME that has the issue.

With the exception of the occasional borderline or co-dependant in my life, what I've found is that the reason I feel the need to cut them out is not  inherent in THEM its that I can't handle it.

William Glasser explains this in his book "Choice Theory." The reason we get so frustrated and unhappy sometimes is because we're trying to control what someone else is doing. We want them to meet our expectations and they won't/don't/can't.

So what I've come to see is, even though its cliche, its not them with the issue, its really is ME! They might be able to live with themselves the way they are but I can't! I can't handle the fact that they are willing to be sub-par or refuse to better themselves or communicate more clearly or more often. I find the way they talk invalidating or their lack of self-awareness infuriating. Their unwillingness to give me what I think I need in our friendship or their inability to discern it is devastating. Yep, those are all my issues.



Maya Angelou said "The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them." I have NO right to expect anymore from them. Of course, if you are in any kind of relationship with anyone you should communicate your needs to them but, after you've clearly communicated and made sure they heard you, if they don't make steps to give you what you need, then its only fair to assume that they are going to continue on EXACTLY how they are. At that point, the inevitable hurt or disappointment that comes when they fail to meet my expectations is really my own fault because they have PROVEN to me that they aren't going to meet my expectations. I am holding them up to a standard I have no right to hold them to.

So when I get ready to toss someone off the plane, its because I'm overloaded, not because they are necessarily too heavy. I'm not ok with how they are but THEY are. My choices are, change my attitude and accept them as they are or toss them off the plane.

Tossing them off is ok. If a plane takes off overloaded, its likely to crash. Its ok for me to say "I CAN"T HANDLE THIS!" and ask them to step off the plane but, in doing so, I have to be willing to acknowledge the problem often lies in my inability to stop wanting to control them. So now I know, a lot of times when I have to ask someone to leave my emotional plane, its because I can't not want to control them. I can't stop myself from expecting them to be different or better.

So yes, its not you, its me. Really.

P.S. I did put in the caveat about Borderlines and Co-dependants. There are more of those than you think. In that case, its not me, It IS THEM and they know it.

Faking It

So our class was supposed to meet in the Library that particular evening and I forgot my student ID.

Without it there is no entrance into the Library, well not unless you leave your drivers licence. The security is  tight at the library to say the least because of course we wouldn't want the uneducated masses trying to break in and learn something.

So the location of my ID is currently undetermined and was the same that very night. The disorganization of anything in my possession once again came back to haunt me.

So I left my licence with the security guards, hesitantly, and was left with a parting warning that I MUST be out of the library by 6:30pm.

Once upstairs, in the classroom, I informed my fellow classmates and professor of my plight. What to do, What to do. One classmate generously offered the loan of her ID, I could  just pass as her.

So I went back downstairs and collected my licence. I exited the North entrance of the library, like a fugitive and returned at the South entrance where I swiped my friend's Id. The whole time I'm envisioning being questioned by the security guards, getting in some freak accident where I am identified wrongly by the ID I'm carrying, or being a part of some criminal investigation in which I am questioned as to my whereabouts on such and such day and the proof is not in my favor because I LIED. I made my way back to class, head down, collar up, hands in pockets, channeling the spirit of Carmen San Diego.

Rules. Obviously I rarely break them. Five minutes in and out and I was a nervous wreck.

I had every right to be there, I am a paying student with no outstanding library fees and yet, I felt like an impostor. I felt like I was waiting for the moment when someone would discover I wasn't who I claimed to be and didn't belong. I waited for the library G-men to bust in and take me out.

So this is getting to be a pattern.

When you start getting older you find yourself in all kinds of new roles and though you are somewhat ready for them, they are kind of like new shoes with a little room to grow. Each time you show up, you worry that someone is going to realize you don't really belong there. Somone's going to figure out you're too young, too silly, too under qualified, too different, too random, too trendily dressed (hey this is a list of irrational fears, better name them all), too distracted.

Taking on these roles often feels like pretending to be someone else. I check myself at the door and sneak in under the guise of a different identity.

So when people yell at you to wait in the hall or refuse to tell you where the faculty mailboxes are because they assume you're a student, you find your fears confirmed.

But this is part of the transition. Its taking off your training wheels so you can learn to ride without them, not because you already can. IT IS taking on a new identity because you're expanding who are but remembering your job is not your identity, at least not all of it.

Sometimes we have to fake it not for other people, because, on paper, we do belong, we're qualified and we've proven that. Sometimes we fake it for ourselves, we don't yet feel validated or at home in these new parts of identity so we "pretend" until we do. We fake it until we understand these are new parts of who we are, and we begin to feel comfortable in a new skin.

I don't know that there's a nice wrap up answer to this one,I think its part of the process of getting older, and change.

So as long as my students talk to me in the elevator like I'm one of them on the first day of class and as long as I'm leading people who have years of life on me, I'll be adjusting.

At the end of the day, I'll probably trip over something and end up with a bruise anyway. Its what brings me back to reality and reminds me I'm still Melanie, carrying someone else's ID or not.