Thought Process

Like every challenge that ever pops up, I was immediately intimidated by Paul's 'Explicate my Poem' unofficial challenge. I've been thinking about this one for days. I genuinely hate picking apart other people's work right in front of them. Makes me feel icky. 🥴

After days of contemplation, I re-read again (just to be sure I was confident in what I feel like I read) and now here I am typing up my take on Paul's poem, Ledger.

You can read it here:

When I read it, I immediately related it to stuff I have going on in my own life. The way people react to how I speak on things that have happened to me or how I get blamed for someone else's bad behavior.

An example of this is the way my husband gets annoyed at men looking at me or telling him how beautiful they think I am in public. He thanks them, and smiles... but if you only knew the rage he is hiding behind that smile, you'd stay far away. Sometimes, those small compliments or looks will get under his skin and piss him off. He will make comments about how he doesn't want to hear it constantly. How it's annoying to him.

And I always tell him the same thing, I don't care what other people do or say. I can't control other peoples reactions, words, thoughts, eyeballs. Neither can you... and why does it matter? Who cares what they say? It's not my job to control others... why are you making it yours? People look at people. they make comments. Good or bad... it happens and harping on it only ruins your day, not theirs.

Another example would be how my entire blood line seems to be mad at me for saying what happened to me throughout my life. They're not even mad or upset about the things they have said or done, more so that I'm speaking about it or see them in a not so pleasant light. They were never mad about the things they were doing or saying as they did or said them... only when I began standing up for myself and seeing them for what they truly were, cruel. Mean. Hateful.

This poem reminded me of that. We aren't responsible for other peoples feelings, and it's completely exhausting when you're always trying to control everything around you.

You just can't control what someone else thinks of you or what they feel, but people will drive themselves crazy trying to do it anyway because they're so terrified of being seen as wrong or bad.

"It's not my job or my commission to make you feel at ease when you turn the page in my ledger". To me, that's saying, it's not my job to make sure you feel ok when you ask me about what I think of you. I'm not gonna lie and pretend that things are fine just to make you feel comfortable.

This part right here feels like going crazy. When you try to control what others feel, you're just a prisoner in your own head. Worrying about what others think is a literal mental jail cell. You can't enjoy anything anymore. You're just stuck wondering, worrying. It's exhausting. Worrying about if you looked bad or said something wrong drains every bit of joy from your day. And taking someone else's actions out on those around you is stupid and will ruin their day also. No one wants to have to deal with someone who can't even control their own emotions because they're too busy telling others how they should react or think.

That's why I just choose to not give a fuck these days. You want me to be the bad guy, ok. Cool. I can do that. Because what Paul's poem felt like to me was basically the blue print of my entire life. I wanted to be thought of as nice and helpful. I should be quiet. Better. If I did nice things, people would think I was worth something. It's not true. At the end of the day, sometimes people are just assholes and no amount of being nice will change the way they see you... and you will only go crazy trying to make them see your worth.

Those are my thoughts on it.

If you want to take a stab at Paul's challenge, you can do so here: