Spilt Milk Tears

Now Playing: Hallelujah by Kate Voegele (andeven though it all went wrong I'll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah)

One of my worst habits is that I swallow a lot of my pride, a lot. Which might seem like a good thing, but it means that I often let things that hurt me slide, and let people get away with intentionally or unintentionally hurting me. I pretend that I'm okay when I'm not, I forgive and forget when I'm still reeling, I fake a smile even when I'm silently seething.

To cut a very long story short, I once had a friend who constantly told me off for making a fuss over nothing. That I was becoming a whiney, naggy, oversensitive...maybe it's politest not to continue on that vein. I used to feel horribly guilty about getting upset, and wheedling apologies out of people; I was more worried about the inconvenience it was causing them than the pain it was causing me. In retrospect, that was just his way of dodging confrontations; whether or not he believed he did something wrong, he didn't want to talk about it and was just very defensive, and preferred to blame it on me.

Although, in fairness, we were very young. He probably thought that I was trying to play a blame game, or was just being attention-seeking and making a fuss over nothing, when all I needed was to get over a little hurt. I used to throw massive tantrums, I was big into spilt milk tears: I hadn't quite mastered the art of more subtle things like 'cold shoulder' or 'bitchy rhetoric'. I was also one of those girls who expected guys to, um, read minds - the whole 'well if you don't know then I'm not going to tell you'. Which is probably not fair, but a steady diet of rom coms and chick lit had kind of convinced me that if a guy doesn't know that he's screwed up, then he doesn't care that he's screwed up. What can I say? I'd like to think that I've grown up a lot between thirteen and sixteen, and my friends are now all seventeen and are more grown up, too. So we all like to think, anyway.   

I know I am very, very sensitive. I know I get really upset over things that wouldn't really affect people that much; but nonetheless, it's not my fault. I can't control that I get hurt over the things I get hurt over. I don't even blame people for some accidentally callous or tactless or insensitive thing; I'm normally pretty good at judging intent, it's the lit student in me. And sometimes it's not a particular incident per se; sometimes I'm already in a dodgy mood and something will rub me the wrong way and tip me over the edge. What can I say? I'm crazy, I know I am. But I'm not afraid to bring things up, talk things over, and be genuinely cool with everything before all the forgive and forget jazz. Anyone who can't put up with that can go screw themselves. Seriously. I am so glad I have friends who put up with my weirdness, I don't need some immature freak who can't eat humble pie occasionally.

Have I mentioned how scary it is for me to do all of this? Friends are so few and far between sometimes I feel like I should just let things go all in the name of friendship. But I can't. I have to love myself enough to say that I can't settle for anything less than love from the people that I love dearly. It's part of being...fearless...