Can We Please Get Over Ourselves?
...And Can I?
Lately, I’ve been navigating a frustrating truth that has become unavoidable. I fear that we have become a culture that reacts faster than it reflects.
How is it that we have the capacity to scroll past catastrophes without flinching, yet remain too busy to wave to our neighbors? When did we become so emotionally numb that outsourcing empathy and weaponing inconvenience became an actual thing?
We no longer extend grace, but we extend blame with remarkable efficiency. Can’t open a door, but have no problem punching the horn when a stranger idles at a stoplight for a millisecond too long.
Everyone else is the problem, as we remain blamelessly centered in our own universe.
This is not a cultural observation that I make from a distance or without introspection. It is a lived experience that has been simmering on the stove for some time and just boiled over.
This past year, I’ve learned a lot about where I place my trust. Following a massive fallout resulting in a huge trust deficit, I have been working to replenish its finite supply in my heart for some time.
In that time, I’ve also been working to overcome a pattern of spending most of my life trusting without much discernment. When my belief that all people are inherently good was shattered, I was forced to reassess, and I’m still working with what that means.
What I have come to learn, is that trust is not built in declarations. It is built in follow-through, especially when it comes to the people who matter most.
And, this is where the simmer comes to a boil. I do not ask for help lightly. Nor do I delegate responsibility when it comes to my son without serious consideration. When I do, it is deliberate. It is chosen. It is earned.
So, when a friend committed to caring for him for 72 hours while I traveled across the country for an important conference, I believed her. There was absolutely nothing casual about the expectation or responsibility.
Days before my departure, the unraveling began. A board meeting, long scheduled yet never mentioned, took immediate priority over her promised responsibility. And it was immovable.
“It’s work. You can just call someone, can’t you?”
Um, no. I cannot. If I could have called someone, I would have. I called you because I trusted you. It took a lot for me to do that, but I did.
What followed was the unfolding of an uncomfortable pattern, that left me completely blindsided and without any options. The trust I had just started to extend snapped shut just as quickly as it opened.
At dinner that same evening, she excitedly mentioned that she was invited on a yacht. It just happened to be the first night that my son would be in her care. The first night of the first day that she also was unavailable to follow through on her commitment.
“Oh shit.”
We both recognized the overlap with surprise. Yet, I noticed that her recognition seemed to carry zero responsibility as I swallowed my words.
“Can’t you just see if someone else can watch him for those four hours?”
Like I already explained. No.
“I could just take him with me on the boat.”
Not onto a boat without me there. Not into an environment where his safety becomes negotiable.
(If any other mother out there disagrees with my boundaries, please comment below.)
Again: “Can’t you just call someone?”
As if reactivity can replace accountability. Instead of honoring the original commitment, the burden shifted completely back to me, conveniently for her.
I found myself standing in the middle of a bad game of parenting pickleball. As a single mother, the ball is always in my court.
When we departed dinner, she casually presented a final request as if it were reasonable:
“I was thinking, with you returning at midnight, I should take him to my house so I can get some sleep. If you don’t mind being super quiet when you come into the house and make sure not to wake us, I think that is the best option.”
Right. Okay, let me fly eight hours back across the country, drive 45 minutes further from my house to wake my 75 lb. son at 1 am on a school night and carry him down a two-story staircase in the dark. Oh, and hope that my dog doesn’t bark as I rush back to grab him and the bags. No problem.
Am I the one who needs to get over myself? Maybe I am misunderstanding, but this doesn’t feel like care at all. It doesn’t feel like help. It feels like irresponsible choreography at the expense of someone else’s reality.
Maybe I should have considered, days earlier, she had asked:
“I don’t understand why you even feel the need to go. What is this thing and why is it important to you?”
I explained in detail why it was indeed important, without hesitation. However, understanding is not a prerequisite for honoring a commitment. Respect is. You do not need to understand someone’s why to follow through on your word. You simply need to have integrity in your own word.
Because we live in a moment where discomfort is avoided at all costs, I did what I do. Process this all through writing, and hope that this feeling of being super let down, fairly pissed off and having to talk to a bunch of people about it, will pass with time.
I just wish that the phrase “I can’t” felt easier than saying “I won’t.”
We are just as responsible for making commitments aspirationally as we are for breaking them casually. And, when responsibility for another’s safety is not flexible, it really shouldn’t be negotiable.
Obviously, I canceled the trip. And it wasn’t because it did not matter to me, because it really, quite did. I knew I wouldn’t reclaim my investment, which was much more than financial. The investment was in time, time away from my precious son, an investment in my company and our future. But my most important job as a mother matters too much to force something wrought with such instability.
It would be so easy to just sit in this frustration and label her as selfish. To call her behavior out as careless and self-righteously let her know where she let me down. And I may take some time to sit and wallow and consider all these options. In fact, I’m taking enough time out of my day to write a soliloquy about it, so there you go.
But that’s not really at the core of what has been truly bothering me lately. This feels like more of a symptom of a larger disease that is infiltrating our core reflexes as a society. Carelessly, casualty deflecting ownership of chosen responsibility feels like a collective decision that the luxury of convenience now outweighs the commitments we enter. Its reminiscent of when we broke plans with one another for better offers in the late aughts.
Did this newly normalizing social phenom occur at the same time that other people became the problem, or was it when we decided that their lives are adjustable and ours are fixed?
Trust, I am looking in the mirror. What I am also seeing is that I am still working on breaking the pattern of allowing myself to over-function in the name of ease for others and expecting the same.
I’m not interested in more apologies. I’ve received a few half ass ones since. And I don’t need to confront or educate or explain. I need to recalibrate and align. I need distance, and I need to stay right where I am.
If I’ve realized anything about relationships and commitments is that they rarely reveal themselves through intention or words. Watch what people do and let them show you who they are.
The question I am asking now, is whether I can walk away from this friendship without explanation. The old me wants to prove myself right. The new me has a feeling she won’t understand, no matter how many words I use.
We need to become the type of people who take more ownership instead of weighing our options. We need to be the people who say what they mean, and then do it. And we need give ourselves and others grace, which I intend to do in this case, with a bit of well-deserved space.
Now, I shall step down gingerly from my substack soapbox. Thank you for reading <3