'No-ing' when

I didn't always have a hard time with no. As a kid I was about as compliant as a kid gets - fastidious to a fault, never walking away from the chance to do homework, even working diligently as a child at my grandparents' restaurant. I never said no, and even more rarely was I ever told no - just because I was always so good at dotting the Is and crossing the Ts, it was hard to say no to me.

That didn't last. Or rather, let me say that didn't last into my 30s.

Today I have an excruciatingly hard time with no - even when it's not directed at me. Maybe that's because I spent 30 years saying yes - or saying nothing. There's got to be a clear reason, rational and thought-out, for no to be okay the first time through. You have to out-think me. In fact, anyone who's ever seen me work knows I work with two clear mantras: Unless you ask, the answer is no --and-- Silence is consent. Both are variations on the same thing - if you don't speak for yourself, you may not like what's coming to you, and in the spirit of self-determination, that's a shitty position to be in. (Ignore that dangling participle, won't you?) It goes along with my earlier post about being active in the choices of your life, that you have nothing to regret if you accept the choices that you made with clear conscience and in good faith.

But...no is a boundary I like to test. I don't relish pushing people in ways they can't go, but I like edging them in directions they won't go. I don't wake up every day thinking about pushing people - that would be arrogant and self righteous. But to be with me, to be my friend and to know me is to understand, in some ways, your own limits - and to work to expand them in whatever way you can. And this doesn't stop with you - I like to be pushed, I like running my hands over my armor until I find that weak underbelly, that soft spot - and then I dig in. Or I invite others to dig in. Is there a boundary there? Is there something undiscovered, a place even I don't know? And does discovering something new and fragile scare you more than it does me? Why?

I am not fearless, I know where my weakest armor is. I am a little afraid of my own reaction to protect those spaces, but I love and respect those people brave enough to go there and take me with them. It's never an easy path, but discovered it is a wonder to behold.