“Do You Want to Be Known For Your Writing, or For Your Swift Email Responses?”
“Women are not taught to do this. We are conditioned to ever prove ourselves, as if our value is contingent on our ability to meet the expectations of others. As if our worth is a tank forever draining that we must fill and fill. We complete tasks and in some half-buried way believe that if we don’t, we will be discredited. Sometimes, this is true. But here is a question: Do you want to be a reliable source of literary art (or whatever writing you do), or of prompt emails?…
I find opportunities to prove myself alluring. I spent a long time trying to maintain relationships with people who wanted more than I was capable of giving. The truth is, I do need to cancel plans regularly. I need to disappear for a few days or even months to attend to my writing. Friends or lovers who resent this, who interpret it as a personal rejection, are often angry with me. And feeling at a deficit makes me want to work harder to make it up to them. In recent years, I’ve learned the relief of letting go of this debt. It is possible to do so with love. Being a good friend doesn’t mean adhering to your friend’s ideal of a good friend. It means devising your own ideal, and then applying it to friends who share that ideal. This application requires a working knowledge of “boundaries.””
