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Kindness is the heartbeat of connection to others. Understanding is the warm hug. Boundaries define who we are willing to be when we connect to others. I wasn’t always bad at boundaries, and sometimes I wonder what happened. That’s what this post is about.

I’ve mentioned before that I love everyone I know. I spent most of my life hoping to find someone to love romantically. In kindergarten, I stared out the front window hoping to catch a glimpse of my crush at school. I was one of those people that forced puzzle pieces that didn’t fit because I wanted that kind of love in my life. As I write this, that part of my life is on pause. I’m not seeking that kind of love anymore. Why? Because that search destroys my boundaries. Also, I’m old, divorced twice, and genuinely don’t know if I have a third marriage in my heart. It’s still healing. I need to work on rebuilding my boundaries first.

I remember being a kid with boundaries, but even then – they were not firm, well-known boundaries. Part of childhood is exploring and experimenting to find out who you are. There was plenty of that, which was a healthy part of growing up. I feel like I never lost that; I did things that people wanted me to do even if I didn’t want to do them, and I didn’t speak up when I disagreed with things. As a child, these are realities we live with, but as an adult they become habits to unlearn. Some of you rebelled. I didn’t. I’m still more of a “do no harm” rule-follower; on the alignment chart I fall in the Lawful Good corner. Sometimes I wish I was more rebellious, but I’ll settle for a rebellious wardrobe – it’s more my style.

I believe some of you will have already drawn the conclusion: people pleaser. So many of us became people pleasers in our childhood because it was how we survived. If we didn’t please our parents, we were punished. If we didn’t please our teachers, we could also be punished. We were small and inexperienced at life and we were surrounded by walls of potential punishments for our actions if we stepped over the line. I envied the people who broke those lines, but not enough to change my actions. As I’ve mentioned, my life was dark chaos. Crossing lines broke me, every time. I had a friend over without permission once, got caught and punished. I only broke the rules a handful of times in my entire childhood. Why? Chaos…

The hardest and best thing I’ve done for myself is take space and live alone. I’ve always had an odd joy doing things by myself. I like going to a restaurant alone, or a museum, or a concert. I revel in that time – probably because I was an only child for the first 10+ years of my life. I didn’t have siblings, and I didn’t have a lot of time or freedom to hang out with friends. More on that someday. However, this search for romantic love – I lost myself in it. Why? Because it was a reflection of the sought love at home in my childhood.

Why did I stare out that window in the hopes of seeing my crush when I was only 5 years old? Probably because my parents weren’t happy with each other, my dad was locked in his office all the time, and my mom was working her ass off all the time. Throw in a little Hollywood romanticism from the entertainment available in the day, and poof: S. is lost in a desire to find that kind of love that is missing at home. Now, it took over 30 years for me to realize this. So, I spent that 30+ years continuing to seek that kind of love and yielding all my boundaries to find it. Bad plan, S., BAD PLAN.

Living alone brings me peace because the people in my home caused so much chaos as a child. But, you know what that chaos gave me? Resilience, strength, and determination. I’ve been through enough hell to know that I can weather the storms, because today I’m not a child and whatever is done to me as an adult is unlikely to surpass what was done to me as a child. May that be true for you, too.

This is a story sparked by a student in my office one day. It’s my version of “Fuck around and find out.”

I always had an uncanny hand strength as a child. I always won hand war, partially due to strength, partially due to strategy. I could hold onto the monkey bars the longest, gave deep tissue massage before I knew what I was doing, and generally proclaimed that I had “baby-strength hands.” (Seriously, babies have strong hands for their size, check it out!) I changed schools a lot in K-12, so I was back to being the new kid in 7th grade. It was always hard, but I got really used to being a loner on the playground – like, seriously, it didn’t bother me by then. Anyway, being the new kid resulted in a lot of pranks, teasing, bullying, etc. That sucked, but it had been happening since I started school, so I just figured it was normal. (Resilience!)

This one kid, though. In English class… He got into this habit of poking me with his pencil during class while the teacher was talking. I hated it, and I don’t use that word lightly (see my first post.) I started by asking him to stop. Then later I started swatting at him. Then I grabbed his pencil and refused to return it during class. Then, I grabbed and broke his pencil. One day, I got so irritated that I finally turned around and grabbed his finger instead. I didn’t just grab it, I yanked it upwards with my wrist. Luckily, I didn’t break it, nor did I get into real trouble (the teachers were reasonably understanding), but he never poked me with anything ever again. I earned his respect with my baby-strength hands! (Cheers!)

This story is a good metaphor for boundaries, in general. Be kind. Don’t sprain their finger after the first poke, right? Not even necessarily the second or third time. But, know your boundaries well enough to make them firmer as you go. And, if that person pushes a boundary that should never be crossed – maybe you should sprain their finger? I know when that time came for me, I didn’t, but I’m working on setting harder boundaries. Using the knowledge of a time when I had boundaries, and nearly broke a guy’s finger in English class as a result.

Don’t go breaking any fingers, please. But likewise, don’t let firm boundaries be crossed.

Much Love, -S.