Before You Pour
on choosing yourself
I heard a girl singing the cover of a song I hadn’t heard before, and it made me stop scrolling. That minute-long reel lasted half an hour; I just kept listening. I wished, in that moment, that I had a voice capable of conveying emotions like that. The way the high notes spoke to intensity and the low notes carried disappointment. She had me in a trance, to say the least. To have a voice that conveys the emotions there are no words for.
Are there ever the right words for anything?
More often than not, I catch myself clinging to emotions that were never conveyed through words. The hug that lasted a second longer than it needed to from a friend you met after a decade. The concern in someone’s heart when they hear your voice on a bad day. The feeling of having someone who waits. The warmth of someone thanking you for taking them as they are with just their eyes.
“Unsaid yet understood.”
I was sixteen when someone said that to me, and I still gather all of my unsaid understandings on one side whenever I’m figuring things out.
In this age of hyperconnectivity, we’ve been exposed to a lot of good and a lot of bad. We’ve seen people live through their happiest days and possibly their worst days as well. It’s all too accessible nowadays, and that’s the problem. We forget to give people the space, the love, and the grace it takes for them to simply be alive without tearing ourselves apart in the process.
We’ve gotten so good at labeling actions as “gaslighting” and “love bombing” that I wonder if we can do anything right anymore. There’s too much water under the bridge before you even begin building it. That’s not normal. Somewhere along the way we stopped being patient and forgiving.
We became so consumed with the pursuit of happiness that we forgot the happiness of the pursuit itself.
Patience and forgiveness aren’t for the other person. I think people consider them deeply selfless acts, when in reality they’re for yourself. Patience is there so you can see something through, to know that you gave it your all and then some, and if that still wasn’t enough then maybe it simply wasn’t for you. Forgiveness is there to show you everything there is to be grateful for and then make your gratitude large enough to let something go.
Not everyone needs correction.
Sometimes people just need a witness to their lives. Someone to tell them that the world didn’t end the last time they failed at something, and it won’t end this time either. A hand they can hold when the ground beneath their feet begins to shift. A friend who doesn’t hold grudges or remember every little mistake they made along the way. Someone they can laugh with without walking on eggshells. A safe space they can sink into without the danger of being swallowed whole.
Life is difficult as it is, we don’t need to make it harder for everyone involved. Especially not ourselves. Take the time to put your own oxygen mask on before you try to help others. No one will apologize for you doing something they never asked you to do.
You don’t have to make grand sacrifices to reassure people that you love them. You don’t need to cut off pieces of yourself for others to feed off of. I say this because what was once an act of love slowly transitions into a deep-rooted bitterness. One that stems from people not being grateful for what you did or simply not acknowledging that you did anything at all. That hurts. And that hurt is more often than not met with a mirror holding a fading reflection of ourselves. And the inevitability of the introspection that follows becomes a pivot point for the rest of your life.
Yes, it’s that big.
Be kind to the people you love, but don’t sacrifice yourself in the process. Do not keep a diary in an attempt to hold people accountable for what they did. Don’t try to control the outcome with your actions. Just breathe and let things be. Fill your glass of water before you pour for someone else. It’s not selfishness. It’s self-preservation.