Sometime in May of this year, my response to the request of someone who i genuinely like was a NO, and then I waited. I didn't wait for the person's response. I waited for this familiar pull in my chest that would push me immediately to explain myself , give a reason why, and maybe give an alternative means, do something to show enough that I care to prove my refusal wasn't a personal one. Though I still do some of these if the person is really worth it because some people are non-fungible. I said no to that person and to this person in a single breath and I went ahead to show that even with my no, I am still a very good person.
Though I felt the pull in my chest, I never allowed it to come out of my mind and thoughts so as not to influence my decision.
I never got to know that exact time that I need to always explain myself every time I refuse to do something. Growing up, most people always believed that saying no is a result of indifference or being aggressive. Like, you don't just say no to someone, you have to have a solid explanation for saying it. Like I always have to give a reason, like evidence from A to Z in my defense, which at times gives room for that other person to come and ask again. The whole outcome is made in a way to make the other person feel comfortable with the boundary I have made, which means I have spent real energy managing their feelings about a decision that was mine alone to make.
This topic came at the right time because for the first half of this year, I have seen a lot, evaluated myself beyond measure, adjusted the way I see things, how I respond, who deserves my energy, and most especially, unlearned some things which is that some explanation or explaining myself too much to some people was never really for them. If I take my time to explain this time, it means I care. It was for me and the benefit of the other person or people. A silent way to preforgive myself for saying no before I could be convicted of being selfish or full of myself.
That no I said in May feels so much like a good decision because it is. And I also loved the response the person gave. No stress. I have never fathomed why I expected more. And now that I have a deeper understanding of a lot of things around and within me, I feel like I have always interchanged integrity and guilt for a long while, and it always feels like if I put one aside, I lose something genuine on the other hand.
When I stopped explaining myself too much, the space that has opened up has in a way that I had never imagined, built another space for new things in my life that I had been so much distracted to tend to properly before. Though I am closer to God, but I am more closer to him now especially recently, in a way that does not look like I am performing and more like genuinely going back to him. Not like something I am doing to please anyone because I don't like to please anyone. I am doing it for myself because I have honestly chosen it.
And I am prioritising my peace more in a way that I have become deliberate and selective about the people I give my energy to and those I allow around me, the type of discussion I involve myself in, what I am giving my time to everyday. And this self conscious action also matters especially when I think about a life partner. I want all the decisions I have to make be from a settled place, not from social pressure of seeing those around me arrived where I'm yet to be in the name of urgency. I as a person want to hear clearly what God is saying about it, and that kind of hearing requires an internal audit in a quiet way that I am only now learning to protect.
Thank you for reading.
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