There’s a famous stage direction in Shakespearean plays that reads “Exit, pursued by a bear.” It is one of the sillier lines. It is perhaps only topped by basically anything Mercrutio utters in the entirety of Romeo and Juliet, or even anything Paris announces to Juliet.

In my experience, we don’t often choose how we meet people. That is, our first impressions aren’t necessarily ours to plan out or choose the reactions to.

But we often get to select how we leave, and on what terms.

And sometimes we exit too quickly and speedily, misunderstanding all the wrong things.

This is a story of how my exits don’t make sense, but also, my need for other people to make exits has been ignored and the wording is being reversed to blame me. But often, with people I care about, I’ll make the exit when saying what I’d want to say would result in me feeling like leaving would be impossible and not encouraged, even if needed.

Part of the reason I moved away from Arizona was people I thought were friends of mineoften saw me only as this girl who dated abusive men and didn’t know any better. I was this girl who had an abusive boyfriend, and I moved on, and was in the process of healing from it. The healing process was just really painful and arduous.

Grey’s Anatomy says this about staying in the same location too long: “They [the people you are with] see you only for who you [once] were, not as who the person that you’ve now become.” And it hit me like a freight train coming full stop into oncoming traffic.

When I realized the beauty of a television show, or theatre script, to me, is that it often allows me to hear the words I cannot say – I felt peace. This character, who, for all purposes of this post, went from completely messing up her reputation to proving she is one of the most skilled and brillant minds in medicine, pointed out the reality of life.

We all have done stupid things.

All of us have made mistakes and not known how to fix them.

Some of us have even had people cover for us.

The thing is, people who know us to be who we once were often limit us into being just who we were. The people we were before life came to us. Life comes to us to allow us to figure out if the path we’re on is ours or chosen for us. Because we can be satisfied either way, sure, but the road less travelled is only worth travelling if we first wanted to.

A lot of us have an idea of our dream.

My first dream was wanting to be an art teacher or librarian.

Somewhere this became becoming a documentarian. Then I realized that was not it. So I went back to teacher, and thought about teaching economics. Realized economics was really fun – and so above my pay grade that it was not going to work at all. But I could talk ideas, neuroscience, beliefs, and psychology – even statistics. I could do a PhD.

My dream transformed into doctoral level psychology or social work research.

I refined this as wanting to use quantitative data, utilizing my knowledge of data studies.

I exited each era of growth, pursued by a glimmer of hope.

And sometimes, when life was too hard, I couldn’t lean on people who I wanted to be there for me. I didn’t want them to leave me. Because what if they exited, too? What if my need for human connection was where they drew the line at desiring me? And what if, in speaking up for who I am, I discover the hidden reason why I was nearly never asked for friendship when I offered it so readily and willingly to most everyone I spoke to?

A lot of people didn’t know what to do.

I would listen to them talk about their struggles.

They’d ask about mine, and suddenly – mine were “too much”. But I don’t control that my struggles are “too much” any more than I can control that others’ are kind of petty. But I at least wouldn’t discount their value for opening up by shutting them down.

One group I went to was antisemetic, and didn’t ever tell me.

I was never asked to be friends with anyone because I was ethnically Jewish.

Antisemetic Christian spaces drive me up the wall. And experiencing one destroyed me when they seemed to love me except when I would call them out on their antisemitism.

But I exited, pursued by a roaring tiger. It was glorious.

So sometimes standing up for myself is really hard.

I speak up on the things that impact me, and I have now experienced people who tell me that I am not Jewish enough to have experienced antisemitism. Also, the fact is, if you think you can tell someone online that they aren’t Jewish enough – perhaps you are part of the raging issue in relgious strife and global dilemmas facing these issues.

The point is to say, sometimes something really big chases us out.

Sometimes a few really big things chase us out.

For me, it was a string of bad things that chased me out of a state I loved: an abusive boyfriend, abusive churches, bad friends, and then antisemitism, followed by a neighbor who used the cops to harass me and force me to leave a dwelling I called home.

Sometimes safety is about the whole picture.

I was moving on and growing, but I couldn’t catch a break.

I don’t say this to claim I’ve not done anything wrong in any sense. I’ve done plenty of things wrong and have fully taken ownership of those. I will admit when I made mistakes and will apologize for hurting people. And, I will no longer accept blame for things out of my control or for systemic injustices/violence/-isms that I alone cannot be expected to fix.

I have been asked to fix so much dumb stuff.

I’ve stood my ground plenty of times.

I’ve had clinical clients furious at me that I stood my ground. And I am okay with that. I let them know, in earnest, many times, when they’d ask, that therapy is at their pace, and that I can’t do the work for them. They would get so bothered that I would call them out for telling them that it’s not my job to force them to open up, but also, if they aren’t going to, then they can’t complain that they aren’t getting anywhere with me. I stand firm that effective therapy includes restating limits and guidelines of reasonable expectations.

And I didn’t have a single supervisor tell me otherwise.

I was 24 and stood my ground on what the job was.

No more, no less. I came to do the job as intended.

And when my job in life is to be someone’s friend, I reasonably expect them to communicate with me if they want to be mine. Because if they won’t or can’t, then it is unfair to me. If they don’t reciprocate and get mad at me for calling them out, then it’s not my issue. I stand my ground that there are unspoken guidelines of friendships.

It’s up to everyone to figure those out.

May you have great friendships.

And exit, pursued by kindness.

XOXO,

Dorothy B.