I went to Avenue Q in the big city last night. Granted, it was a community production and not traveling Broadway, as I’d thought in the beginning, but the talent in the puppetry, music and acting was fantastic. It was also in this quaint little theater with a bar, just an offbeat neighborhood of sorts. It really made me nostalgic for all the plays my mom took me to in our community theater. Local talent from people with complete different career paths, but enough gumption to rehearse and perform. Oh. And the musical is even funnier than my expectations from the soundtrack.
Even better, I got to spend the evening with my cousin and her wife. I mean I love talking to them and hearing their stories and just being around their adorable life they’ve made. But then I get all this insane advice about stepping away from negativity — whether that be a love who didn’t treat you right or people even closer, who are supposed to be your networks but don’t always act like it.
I guess what I took away from that is, someone’s always going to be ready to jump at you. To assume your motives are in vain and tell you that. I think we allow ourselves to believe bullies are only in the faces of children, and only before adulthood. The hardest thing to accept is when it’s really that person we’d rather be going on dates with that’s manipulating, and in the worst-case-scenario, the person we’re related to doing the bullying.
The other hard thing to learn about myself is, I am still vulnerable, as I was as a child. Yet now, I am in control of who I have. And while not everyone in our life is our own choice, we can choose how much we network with individuals and manage what we can. It really is overdue that I make those changes accordingly, or stop complaining.
We’re so afraid of awkward conversation or hurting feelings, we let ours get hurt instead. That doesn’t have to be me. If this weekend proved anything, it’s that my family and networks mean enough to me that I don’t have to play victim time after time. Negative energy is removable.
