25 Nisan 2021, Pazar
saat: 20:56


I cherish all my kiddos but sometimes it’s like oh my god children please just take a break from thinking and instead spend a couple years living out in the world!

a (very smart and sweet) student this week: I don’t know if I can apply for this fellowship because this plan does not align with what we had discussed earlier, and I was very hurt and upset by the way you spoke to me on Thursday and I feel that you have lost confidence in me and that hurts me deeply.
me patiently: well.. i can see why that would weigh on you.


This is a huge "oh, honey" moment and I can't. I just can't.

I have a lot of (good, wonderful, life-affirming) feelings I wanna do some reflective writing about later, especially around like, what secure attachment looks like in practice and also in the context of a really solid relationship, but, in the context of this conversation I want to just note one thing: I think—and this is absolutely shocking to me—that I am maybe getting a little bit better at... dare I say it... feeling my hurt feelings about something kinda hurtful/embarrassing... and then... accepting that I cannot change how other people choose to engage with me, nor can I “fix” the way they perceive me... and then this seems to enable me... to just let the hurtful thing roll off me so I can go on with my life without letting other people totally wreck my day/week??!! When I was thinking about my response to O., I started the imaginary conversation in my head with "we do not owe the universe a minimum of 10,000 hours of gnashing our teeth and rending our garments about how horrible we are and/or they are when somebody is kind of a dick to us" - then I asked myself when did I reach this level of maturity? When did I realize I am allowed to just look levelly at a situation, acknowledge that there may be some truth in it, and then kinda just shrug and move on with my life?

Speaking of reflection and self-awareness... I’m reading the book at last, very slowly, and I can’t believe how much it’s making me cry.



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