Putting up boundaries means getting real—with others and with yourself.
Building boundaries, especially where there have been none before, requires a genuine act of bravery. You cannot give a tinker’s damn what happens—accept the consequences no matter what losses they result in. A friend of mine once called it “wearing your Go-To-Hell glasses”. So many people have no boundaries and allow themselves to be victims or treated like doormats (yours truly included) because they don’t want people to think they’re jerks, or lose friends or lovers.
I, however, have nothing left to lose. It’s a strangely powerful position to be in.
When I was friends with HWSNBN, I was the easygoing one. Whatever he wanted was fine. Whatever restaurant he wanted to go to, whatever car he wanted to take, whatever advantage of me he took, I allowed it. Why I let my guard so completely down I will never know, but it’s taking a mammoth effort to rebuild these borders now that I’ve so completely and utterly destroyed them.
Learning to say ‘no’ to other people is tough enough, but learning to say ‘no’ to yourself is 100 times as hard. It means forcing yourself to stop obsessing over a breakup. It means telling yourself to suck it up and get out of bed when you don’t want to. It means not accepting bad offers just because they’re offered to you.
My friend Red in DC wrote to me last night and offered me a job in our nation’s capitol again. She has a new, high profile job opening up, and despite her last email about this subject (wherein she warned me about the backstabbing attitudes at her organization and did a 180 on her job offer because she couldn’t in good conscience offer me the job as bad as the situation was), she’s writing me with this new job offer. This new job is fairly important, and very few people would ever be pre-cast to do such a thing. After writing a page-long description of the job in ridiculous detail, Red ended by saying, “Think about it – hard work but new money, new adventure.”
As any long-time reader of this silly blog knows, I’ve been down this road before. As anxious as I am to get out of my present job, I’m old enough and wise enough to know what I want and what I don’t want. One of the things I don’t want is to go from frying pan into the fire—unless I can bring my asbestos suit, that is.
In Red’s email to me, she also warned about potential overtime. “Some quick turnarounds- like being called in and staying all night – which doesn’t happen often….”
Now, I’ve worked with Red before. Red was my former boss here at Initech, so she knows me and knows how well I work, and moreover, she knows I hate overtime with a passion. I’m very protective of my off-time, so I appreciated her honesty in letting me know the expectations.
In the spirit of ‘new boundary’ building, I was honest when I wrote her back and said, of the job description itself, most would be easy and some items would need training, but that OT was completely out of the question for numerous valid reasons which I laid out in detail. I offered telecommuting as an option, but told her in all honesty, that I couldn’t do the overnight thing—ever.
To my great surprise, she wrote back and said that wouldn’t be a problem. According to her, OT is voluntary. Telecommuting is something they’ve been looking into and might be an option.
For now, I’m telling her, I’ll consider it, but I’m noncommittal. It depends on so many factors—details that have yet to be worked out, and lots of potential deal breakers. For one thing, there’s the matter of practical expenses. Right now, I’m living in a comparatively cheap place to live, I’m ten minutes from work, and my house (for what it’s worth) is paid for. Moving to DC, I’d need to find cheap housing, reliable and fast transportation to work, and even with the raise in pay, I’d have to get myself on a budget that’s reasonable (gas is ridiculous, and sitting in traffic for two hours sucks balls!). A lot can go wrong with this formula, and I need to decide if it’s worth it.
In my mind, I’m not allowing myself to get my heart set on this at all. If this were ANY other time in my life, I’d be planning the move already, saying goodbye to my friends, and in my mind, I’d have already moved. The problem with this pre-set method is, I’m setting myself up for heartbreak. It’s like writing, “Mrs. Margaret Smith” 1000 times and buying Brides Magazine after a first date. Putting the cart before the horse has never worked for me in the past, so I’m refusing to do it now. Odds are, I won’t take the job, so I’m not going to make any promises.
Still interesting though!
At least it’s good to know I’m still attractive to employers (if not to eligible bachelors! Hah!).
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” Janis Joplin
"Men fell in love with Margaret, but they woke up with me." [Then they tried to chew off their own arms to get away. Hah!]—ed.
Honestly, I had been a doormat for so long I never would have thought I could change. I have always let everyone walk all over me, including the ex. I let him decide everything…even down to the color of my toenail polish…and earrings I wore (because some where just to ‘whoreish’ for his liking). Ugh.
It’s been 7 months and I have done a complete reversal. I’ve sold my business, started a new one, take absolutely no shit from anyone, tell it like it is – no holds barred. Funny, though, now some think I am a complete bitch. Which is fine with me, because it sure beats being a doormat! Thanks for this post!