No Is A Complete Sentence

I think that it was the Olsen twins that coined the phrase "No is a complete sentence".  

I have a checkered past with the word no.  Something suggested to me that would push me out of my safe zone, past the walls I had built; that was an easy no.  Saying no to someone wanting me to do something, change myself for them, give in to what they wanted over what I wanted, impossible.

But I grew slowly to discover is this.  Saying no is liberating.  Not changing or giving in, feels wonderful.  Every day, I take a step further away from whom I was and walk towards who I am.

Take hobbies for example.  I love writing and usually try and get something written down, even if it only a paragraph or two, every week.  At the moment, I try to write a post a week but it depends on how I feel on any given day.  You cannot force writing.  It just comes.

My partner has many hobbies.  He is always doing one hobby or another in the evening and one night he suggested that I should get another hobby for when the writing did not come. He doesn't watch TV and does not understand the binge watching of series.

I laugh now, but I thought that getting another hobby would please so....I came up with knitting.  Knitting.......

I got some needles, some wool and one night, I gave it a go.  Except.  I did not want to fucking knit.  I wanted to watch the damn TV.  I lasted a night.  There was a lot of swearing.

I think that probably shows just how comfortable I already felt with him.  Giving up after one night.  The old me would have tried, and tried and tried.  I would have made it my vocation to please him.  To succeed.

I remember him laughing the next night when I threw away the needles and gave the wool to the cat to play with.  He said "Baby, just because I suggest something, doesn't mean you have to do it.  You do you.  You don't have to try to please me.  You please me."  

That was one of the many steps that I learned.  You don't have to try and please people for them to like you.  They either like you, or they don't.  You do not need to earn anyone's approval.  If they think you do, screw them.

I have discovered that there are many phrases I that I did not feel comfortable saying.  It is only in the past year that I find myself able to start using them again.  

No.  

I don't want to.  

You can do that yourself.

I was always the caretaker, the organiser, the fixer.  The one who always said yes, even when I secretly thought no.  On the outside, I was the good organiser, the good person, the one who you could count on to take care of the "thing" that needed sorting.  But the truth was that I was trying to find love and acceptance by giving, then more giving.  I gave so much of myself that I thought that there was nothing left.

I am still the organiser and the fixer.  I have found that it is a part of me and I do enjoy it.  But the difference now is that I take a step back when I want.  I say no when I have too much on my plate.  I say no, just because I do not want to.

The temptation to help people will always be with me and is part of who I am.  But now, it is on my terms.

Trying saying no.  I don't want to.  Leave it to someone else for once to arrange.  If you are like I once was, it will be hard.  But you can do it.  You owe it to yourself.  You deserve it.

And if you fall off the bandwagon, just remember, no is a complete sentence.