As it turns out, I’ve been too passive. I wish that word could open up and bloom into everything I mean it to. When I kept trying to make a relationship work with Maria, I kept ignoring all the reasons it wouldn’t. The hurt steered me towards trying to make everything better, when I wasn’t giving a lot of thought to what I expected better to be.

I’m not solely talking about relationships. Take quitting Strategy, another fine example of not drawing boundaries, and not putting my foot down, when other people were being unreasonable and harming me. Looking up again and finding myself in a much better place through no significant effort of my own beyond the storm itself is an awakening.

I can’t think of any justification for the way I’ve been, just fear. I have to put explicit effort into questioning myself. I seem to have two cards to play, trying to be a martyr and trying to be amazingly amiable. Neither are respectable choices. They’re rooted in an over-simplified belief that somehow I’ll fool people into liking me if I do. We’re way beyond that now though.