volume fifty-five

shut up and dance

I am not sure if this translates in my writing, but for those who know me in person, you’d very likely use the words bubbly, optimistic, positive, energetic or silly to describe my personality. I am often seen dancing into a room as my entrance, with a huge smile on my face, greeting people with hugs or high-fives or exchanging dances across the space. I keep this energy up, because the pure joy of living, on most days, is enough to make me want to react this way to the day-to-day privilege of being alive. It is not a choice, it is a reaction.

But some days I haven’t gotten enough sleep, some days maybe something upset me in the ways of bad news, some days I have started a new medication and I am walking around on a little bit of autopilot as my body adjusts to it and any of these things may mean I don’t dance in but I walk in, I don’t high-five but I do give a smile and a warm greeting, I don’t laugh at your jokes at my expense because my lack of energy means I don’t have it to spare to ease your comfort levels when it comes to making you think your poking fun is hilarious. I go about my business with the level of enthusiasm anyone else might but because I don’t jump up and down with glee you might later pull me aside to ask if I am mad at you.

This has been something I have encountered for as long as I can remember. As a child, I recall being told I was in a bad mood over and over by my mum and my sisters, when I knew I wasn’t. You always know when you’re actually in a bad mood so being told you are when you aren’t — I think we have all been there — it usually only becomes so annoying, that you do in fact, get in a bad mood. This has carried over the decades and happened, honestly, only as often as a few times a year, the times where I feel my energy levels dip but don’t have the option to get the rest I need due to work obligations, lack of privacy, or other commitments. When I can, I will opt for the sleep to recharge, but when it is not possible, I am told I am in a nasty mood in one way or another. “Sorry I need to nap” isn’t always an acceptable excuse for cancelling plans unless you’re around the right people. This is likely why it felt much more prevalent when I was younger because I grew up in a full, catholic house where privacy was something I was never awarded and the older I have gotten I have been able to create better boundaries and also have just gotten the luxury of my own space.

All that to say, thankfully — with age, with wisdom, with getting to know myself better, with sobriety creating a mind unclouded, with using words and thoughts more intentionally as a result of my recovery and work on myself with professionals — I have been very aware of the fact that just because someone says I am in a bad mood, doesn’t make them right.

At the end of the day, if someone thinks I am mad at them because I didn’t rejoice in the idea of doing a boring task and instead just said “sure” and did it, or if they think I am grumpy because my enthusiasm to their stories has dipped but has not entered any realm of rudeness, there are two sets of responsibility here: the first is for me to acknowledge when I am tired, I do not owe that explanation to anyone however it entirely is in my nature to let them know because I know when I spend most of my time operating at a 12, when I dip to a 7 people think I am being rude. Explaining my sleepiness, while not necessary, helps to soften the blow. The responsibility of opting for rest when possible falls into my section and is always taken when an option. 

The second responsibility is in fact, none of my business. It falls to the person judging me — telling me I am in a bad mood, telling me I am a grumpy person, telling me to lighten up. It takes everything in me not to turn around and ask them what it is exactly I have said or done to make them think I am in a bad mood (you know in the kind of tone an angry person would only to strengthen their argument) knowing full well there were never any nasty words sprung from my mouth, or rudeness, or unkindness. I know it is purely that I am not bouncing off walls in my interactions with them they feel insecure, and that has taken all of the years to realise that this responsibility is theirs. It is theirs because they are holding me to an expectation they have of me. They are assuming that I am going to behave in the exact same way every day, day in and day out. While consistency is great — if I am not hurting anyone, your desire for me to be overcome with joy at every moment and your rejection of me responding at the level of enthusiasm everyone else in the room greets life with — means your expectations of me are unfair.

I am not the person who can carry the positivity all of the time. You have come to expect that of me. I do not expect that of myself.

I have learned over and over how I have been let down by others so much in my life only to realise I was holding them to an expectation I had of them and they had not actually let me down at all. I was creating an idea of how I wanted them to behave in my head and when they didn’t, I felt let down. The truth is, I was being unfair and placing my expectations on them, rather than letting them be their own person.

Let me be my own person. She is someone who operates at different levels on different days based on how she slept, what she ate and what the weather is, like the rest of us.

It has taken a long time, but I absolutely recognise where the people I want to be around are, for many reasons, but a huge one is that we do not hold each other to expectations, we see and accept each other. We do not accept poor or rude behaviour, but we do accept and recognise the vast difference between someone who is being nasty, and someone who isn’t bouncing off the walls because they would rather be napping and for some reason cannot be. Those people might even offer alternatives to the current task, recognising when each other isn’t feeling up to it and wanting everyone to feel as good as they can.

Please do not mistake my operating at a 7 for me not recognising a bad mood. Oh do I ever have bad moods, they are different. There are some days when I know the most minor inconvenience is all it is going to take to set me off. There are plenty of days I have to apologise for snapping or being short or making a snarky comment. There are a lot of days, albeit less and less, that I don’t apologise and ride off on my high horse. This is not what I am talking about.

I experienced this, this week when lack of sleep due to extreme heat and adjusting to new medication left me on low energy, and while it has been a long time since someone decided to tell me over and over that I was in a bad mood — mostly because as mentioned I have become very good as getting a nap or food or surrounding myself with people who are chill — it was a shake-up for me to go ahead and let it go. (And I know, I know writing all of this about it makes it sound like I have far from let it go, but I didn’t let it turn my mood into a bad one. I knew that was on them, I knew I was fine, I knew they were wanting something from me I couldn’t give in that moment and I didn’t force myself to try and I didn’t let their perception become factual).

What I did do was take a deep breath and know this isn't about me at all. What I did do was fight every urge to explain that I had not, in fact, said or done anything rude at all and their words needed to be chosen more wisely because my behaviour did not reflect a bad mood but rather a tired person. What I did do was just smile and say “nope, I’m not in a bad mood” and leave it at that.

Others’ expectations of me are exactly that. If I know I am kind and I know I take responsibility when I am not, then anything in between is not about me at all. We all have bad days, sad days, mediocre days, tired days — note to self: you are allowed.

Where have you put your expectations of someone on them? Where have others done this to you? When what you need isn’t available to you at that moment, how can you, even in a small way, take care of yourself?

I love you,

LD

xoxo

Three things I struggled with this week:

🌈 Every year at Pride, I tell myself this is the year I will find a beautiful queer to romantically spend the day with and have a Pride-filled day of loveliness and every year I forget I am a demisexual and I will have probably to wait to fall in love. I enjoy Pride with pals each year and there are no complaints, I am just acknowledging how easily I fantasise about being different to who I am.

🐦 Some long-time readers might remember Gordie - my grandparents’ pet bird. This week on the phone, my Nan while crying (for what she told me has been for days), told me Gordie flew away. I am heartbroken for her. She said she started crying so Poppy started crying and oh my goodness my heart broke. She said she wouldn’t get another but I think someone convinced her otherwise as she now has two baby sisters — Mooey (her nickname, if you remember Gordie is my Pop’s name, not sure why they keep giving their pets their own names haha) and Dotty. Bless her.

😮‍💨 Having some doozies of conversations with my sponsor. Necessary to healing, but doozies.

Three blessings from this week:

🤠 Remember how I previously mentioned I have to start wearing hats due to sun sensitivity with a medication I am on? I bought myself a cowgirl hat and have never felt this way about myself before. I am iconic. I am hot as hell. I am also very cool. That is all.

🧘 I have been very consistently waking up before my alarm and greeting the day before 4:30am with such enthusiasm this past week. I have also started working out again — something I gave up when I got sober — and I have been gentle, kind and prioritising stretches and I feel stronger than ever. My routine is pretty fab right now. 

✌️The summer of fun continues with an outdoor screening of Spice World in the park accompanied by snacks and delightful roommates.

Three goals for the coming week:

🌊 I am away on a housesit with no restaurant shifts to go to and with one of my freelance gigs on a little break, so I am going to relax, I am going to write — more than usual. I have quite a few creative delights going on in my mind and I am thrilled to explore them this week while living by the beach temporarily. I will get to the ocean daily (and am hitting schedule on this before I head off so look out for those beach pics next week).

🗒️ I love a good list. I have had some ups and downs with employment as of late, going from way too many options on the table that I was overwhelmed, to finding out how some are just not the right fit after all. I want to write a list, hopefully a short one and thanks to the advice of a friend, of what I would like to do. In an ideal world, I would secure more income via a way I wish rather than a way of necessity. Of course, this is a luxury I likely won’t be able to follow through with, but there is no harm in trying a little manifestation and exploring the desired direction.

📙 I am taking a fresh book with me to my housesit. Let’s see how much relaxing sunshine I can get myself in lieu of screentime.

What I am enjoying this week: 

As part of my Pride celebrations, I got to volunteer again with one of my favourite organisations, QMUNITY. QMUNITY is a non-profit organization based in Vancouver, BC that works to improve queer, trans, and Two-Spirit lives. While they do incredible work throughout the province, a lot of their groups are held virtually, which means if you’re interested you can join from wherever you are in the world (it was such a blessing to have access to them while I was living in another province for two years, so far away from community).

Check out all of the awesome peer support groups for LGBTQ2SAI+ people here.

qmunity

A post shared by QMUNITY (@qmunity)

 

My week in a photo dump:

hi, lauren deborah! is free for subscribers every week. feel I am not sharing enough? ask me a question and I will answer it in a future post.

if you would like to say thanks for this love letter, please like or comment (it means so much to me to hear from you 🧡), forward it to a friend who might enjoy it or if you’d like to, you can buy me a slice 🍕