Day 6: PN23
STRENGTH.
I said NO to so much!!!
I awoke dreading going to work because the morale has been horrible. I am always having to defend myself in some way, and I wasn’t in the mood to do it again today. But, my Spirit Peeps blessed me with so many songs on my way to work, I had to change my tune! (Yeah, I did it. I punned you.) It started with Whitney Houston’s “I Look to You”, moved to Village People’s “Macho Man”, and finished up with Barry Manilow’s “It’s a Miracle”, which matters because one of my managers is a Fanilow to the extreme. When I got to work, I joked with my managers and said that I am a Village People—”Guess I just need to put my hard hat on!” And in that moment, I found a new way to walk through the world. Construction Worker is my alter work ego!! NO to the best-defense-is-a-good-offense bad attitude! (Oh, and I verbally defended myself to one of the perpetrators without flinching or internalizing. Project NO in action!)
It was somewhat slow at the restaurant today, and I came so close to offering to leave early. But, Management is instituting new policies where we don’t cut early during the busy season, and I went along with it. I went with the flow. What!? Yep. And I made good money as a result. NO to overfunctioning and underestimating myself and my management!!!
While I was forwarding some important info to my manager via text, I looked at my phone to find a notification in Messenger from a friend who abandoned me in 2021. I happened to see her emails that she sent in January/beginning of February, but I have chosen to wait to review and respond based on her ghosting me for nearly 18 months. In all honesty, she crossed a major line in August 2021 when I was sick with Covid and had just relocated from NC to AZ due to a very dangerous personal situation. I didn’t need a lecture on her opinion about the vaccine; I needed compassion and a friend—my best friend, actually. While I asked her to give me some space following my angry response when it went down, I did reach out to her via text on holidays and via a text group to which she didn’t respond, and still doesn’t. Needless to say, I became very angry that she is now trying to contact me via yet another mode that we never used. Why won’t she call or text me? Why change our communication method—except only to manipulate me and dominate the situation like I’ve realized she did so many times in the past? I’m sure she will disagree with my POV, but here’s what I said NO to with respect to this situation today.
NO—[insert friend’s name here], you do not get to pressure me via methods you know I don’t use often so that you can use that against me later. “But I reached out to you and you didn’t respond. I’m trying here.” Stop with the gaslighting and manipulation please. NO, I mean it.
NO—I get to choose when I deal with this issue. You abandoned me, and I have moved on. I am very, very busy with 2 jobs, school, and building a future with this website. NO. You will not bully me into your timeline. Stop it.
NO—I will not feel guilty or wrong in my feelings or my stance on this issue. You have a right to your feelings, opinions, and needs. SO DO I.
NO—I will not be manipulated into thinking that you cannot contact me any other way. I will not fall into the trap of giving you free passes to mistreat me again via “excuses”, such as “maybe she doesn’t have her phone anymore & lost your number.” Her husband has my number. And most importantly, she could email me with that sentiment in the subject line like she did to wish me a happy birthday recently. So NO. I will not make excuses for you being a coward or a manipulator. Woman up and own this.
NO—I am worth having friends be real friends, especially when I need them. I have spent my life making excuses for not having my needs and wants met because someone always had a reason / excuse for not making the effort. I realize this is a bit of a repeat from above, but I cannot stress enough how powerful this is for me to say NO to this. Seriously. I have counted on people to not mistreat, belittle, or abandon me, and when they did, I took them back because of their excuses. Not their apologies and genuine repentance—excuses. And I’m done.
See, here’s the bottom line for me and why Project NO has my commitment this year. I am at this point in my life—midlife—and I’m still not where I want to be because I didn’t say NO to so many things, so many people. I waited on people to do right by me, only to have them not. I’ve trusted people to keep their word, only to have them waste my time and suck my life force from me. I’ve loved people without judgment or expectation—like Jesus asked me to do—only to find that they have spoken ill about me behind my back and abandoned me emotionally and otherwise. So guess what… I am not going to allow this to happen anymore. Period. And, if that means that people think I’m all-kinds-of-mean-spirited names not fit to print, well so be it. I am done forfeiting myself in relationships and situations that are not reciprocal. Done. Done. Done. No one is going to defend me, my life, my energy, my dreams—MY MENTAL HEALTH— except for me. No one is going to advocate for me like I will. So… Project NO is just another way for me to practice self-advocacy so that in 1-10 years I can be living my best life. Shoot—so I can be living my best life today.
