OTHER PEOPLE? Means walking away. Rather than insisting, demanding, or picking a fight. (Or manipulating, coaxing, insinuating). Because I want resolution NOW, is pure bullshit, except that it’s a limit of my own. (See below) Do this now or f*ck right off. OTHER PEOPLE process things in their own time. Which could be moments or years or decades. How I FEEL about their process? Again, total bullshit, to anyone but me. So, no matter how much I ME MYSELF want them to talk/listen/engage/do XYZ? Backing the F.A.W.K. off, to allow them their own time, means, methods.
Relationships, however, involve 2+ people. So my feelings, as well as theirs, are relevant. Some people? I have almost unending patience for. Others? Almost none, whatsoever. But that? Is. A. Reflection. Of. Myself. It has little to nothing to do with what they need, much less want, and almost everything to do with me. The people I tend to get on best with tend to process within “my” agreed/accepted timelines. People I give up on, or am confused by, or infuriated by? Are wildly outside of what I expect. Whether faster or slower. They don’t do things in the way *I* understand.
Splitting the difference? Taking into account what I know about myself, and wanting to yield to their own process? Difficult as hell. And something I’ve ONLY done when the relationship is soooooo important to me, that losing it, is preferable to testing it (as I care about them, themselves, more than I care about the relationship / my place in their lives. Read: Family. Both by blood/friendship. I want THEM whole. If they hate me, disavow me? That pain & loss is a welcome price to their wholeness).
