Brave by Sara Bareilles

Lately I have been listening, really listening, to the song Brave by Sara Bareilles.  It is a catchy tune, and easy to get stuck in your head because it has a great hook and a consistent bass line.  But underneath (or on top of, depending if your glass is half full or half empty) the musicality lies words which impart exactly what the title promises.  

In life there are many, many obstacles, more than a person could ever deal with at one time.  Thankfully, life never gives us more than we are able to handle, so it is great how it all works out in time.  At the time nothing seems like it will ever resolve, but somehow it always does, even at the last moment, just as you are starting to give up on hope.

One of the greatest lines I love in Brave is “you can be...the backlash of somebody’s lack of love...or you can start speaking up”.  She talks about how nothing hurts worse than when words settle under your skin, never having been voiced, words that are kept on the inside, and when that happens she says the shadow wins then.  

It has always been my “thing” that I can not stand it when people argue out loud.  It makes me nervous and shakey and lightheaded, all at the same time.  I still am like that nowadays.  I am sure it is because I had an abusive father with a short fuse, and my childhood brain has adapted by shying away from direct confrontation.  I am terrible at being effectively direct;  I excel at being mouthy or in being meek, but that middle road has always eluded me.  Whatever the reason I am how I am, the result is that I too often keep things inside, which costs me in so many different negative ways.  

Going into this new year and going forward from the familial explosion that has happened, I am no longer going to be timid.  I am going to tell people what I think and feel.  It is not my responsibility how anyone responds to me.  If I have said what I needed to say honestly and fully then, the burden at that point is off of me.  The words and feelings then have light that shines upon them, so in that way the shadow will not win.  Things left in the dark tend to get moldy or to rot and I do not want my internalized words or feelings to cause that for me.  That is why I have drawn a line in my sand.  When someone else’s choices and behaviors affect me in a negative way, it is time to distance one’s self from those people.  I learned that in NA/AA and in my drug rehab.  Why tempt fate and why keep close to something that only burns you?  That would be madness.  

I am sure that below this post, there will be the expected rebuttals and barping and line after line of why I am terrible, awful, wrong, misguided, blind, and wrong.  That is to be expected because as is always the case...the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.  As the sun rises, negative and shrill rebuttals are to be expected and ignored (though not deleted as has been accused;  lying is never pretty, FYI).  Have a great New Years everyone!