I suspect I may be too fierce.
My birthday is in a month and a half and my astrologer of choice is telling me it is time for my personal evaluation of where I am and who I am and where I am going, etc. etc. I woke at 4am and my brain started in on this torturous introspection directive. Except, as a good disciple of the western philosophy of self loathing, instead of a swift and tidy examination of where I am, I twisted the exercise into "what is wrong with me?" The list is pretty impressive, but boils down to this one observation I have lived with for most of my life: I am too fierce.
I haven't always been fierce. As a very young child I was painfully shy and quite nice. But over the years I have dealt with my natural introversion by developing a toughness of which I am not ashamed, but kind of weary. I'm getting old, and I am tired of the hard side of myself.
How does my hard side manifest? Well, let's see....
I have a long track record of not letting people get away with shit. My guilty pleasure film is "You've Got Mail" in which Meg Ryan plays a woman who laments the fact that she can never think of the right snappy comeback to say when being insulted or patronized. I do not have this problem. I can always think of a comeback and I almost always let 'er rip.
I am happy to lodge a complaint in a restaurant, and I am okay with abandoning friendships and acquaintances that are toxic with nary a backwards glance. I have a quick wit and I will take the joke over the consequences on many occasions.
But the older I get the more I understand that it is not up to me to right all the wrongs of the world. And I am flawed, so why can't I ease up a bit on the flaws of others?
Here is a truth I know about fierce people: we are often deep, deep feelers. We experience the highs and lows of life strongly, and our instinct to lash out is part of or way of dealing with the brutal beauty of this world.
Still, I am tired of holding on to anger and fear and ready to free myself. Can I do it? Will I be able to break patterns that have held me together like glue for so long? I have no F*cking idea. But at the very least I have isolated the biggest problem area.
