IMG_20151009_164232157I’m bad at sharing.

I should qualify. Thanks to poly, I’m getting better at sharing people.

I’m bad at sharing stuff.

And I feel a lot of shame around it.

I feel like “good” people wouldn’t care about material possessions.

Attachment is suffering. That’s why I don’t think I am a very good Buddhist. It does cause me suffering for sure.

Maybe it’s because I was told I was selfish a lot growing up. So much that it eroded my boundaries. And I felt like my emotions were wrong and shameful. And I would do what I thought other people wanted even when it made me miserable.

I’m trying not to be that way anymore. Maybe this is just the messy feelings that come with learning to assert boundaries. Maybe I just haven’t mastered which ones really matter yet.

I know emotions are not logical. But I try to logic my way out of it. If someone gives me X, of course I should give them Y freely. Y is smaller.

But maybe it doesn’t work that way because they wanted to give me X. And even if I feel like I ought to reciprocate, is trusting my gut better even when it feels bad to deny someone something?

Bleh. This stuff is hard. And messy.

There is a quote and I’m typing on my phone so I can’t attribute right now: “Own nothing that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” I try to live my life that way. I pare down my stuff several times a year. So whatever is left I either use a lot or have an emotional attachment to. Or both.

My Mom always told this story about me. Before I went to kindergarten we had a practice day where the students all got to meet with the parents there. Everyone was in a circle. All the kids got balloons. Each kid in the circle stepped on theirs to pop it. I was last. But I wanted to keep my balloon. Apparently I cried.

My Mom always framed the story as something bad. Something that made her worry about me. But why is it so bad to like a balloon and want to keep it? Maybe it is a question of temperament.

I’m never exactly sure if this is really a character flaw or a side effect of gaslighting. But I know my face gets hot when someone borrows or wants to borrow something that I don’t want to share. It’s especially hard when it’s someone I love and trust, or someone who has been generous with me.

I’m bad at sharing. I don’t know why. I guess everyone has a thing and that is one of mine. I wish I could either get past it or accept it, but until I know which of those I should do I probably won’t.

One thought on “Things I Should Have Learned in Kindergarten

  1. I probably wouldn’t have wanted to pop the balloon, because I was sound sensitive and being last probably would have had me overwhelmed by all the previous popping by the time it was my turn. (I had a problem in second grade at the birthday party where one of the games involved sitting on a balloon to pop it. I still remember the feeling of the balloon under me as I sat on it. I was probably the lightest kid at the party, as well.)

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