I got into an argument (ok, not really an argument - more like a divergence of opinion) with someone this morning...we do this a lot, her and I. Both of us right in our beliefs, however she has a larger and less intimate involvement with the subject matter - me. She is able to see things about me and my life that I do not see or cannot see or concoct amazing tales to avoid seeing. So we disagree on the subject of me often.
Today’s topic was not a new one for us. No, this concept of a all access pass being one that we have revisited repeatedly over the years...to both our dismay. She feels that I grant (and she is correct) an all access pass to people who enter my life that should not be granted such a pass. And that I do not do a good job keeping out the riff raff in my life. To be clear, what she objects to most is that I allow people who have hurt me, often times grievously, back into my life under the guise that this time I will be stronger, better, faster, unassailable. And so far, I have been stronger, better, faster and unassailable, never.
I call it taking the high road, or going forward with love, or some other name that doesn’t sound at all like I am selling myself out, but in the end that is the result...pretty much every single time.
It is this same person who asked me a few months ago, when I was going to stop having to have someone abuse me...that was a dark day to be clear. I knew she was right, and I also knew that I didn’t seem to be able to not select someone to do the job and if I am left to my own devices, well, I will find someone to do the job by God!
She has postulated that perhaps this is something that stems from long ago...based on the idea that I am not worthy or lovable or valued. And she would be right on all counts so it would seem.
I am not sure why I feel compelled to grant so many people an all access pass, most especially men. But I have and I do. And this is before I take the time to find out if they are worthy or really interested. I just grant them access and then never seem to see that since I am the one doing the granting that I am also the one that is in charge of revocation...
Not everyone deserves an all access pass to you, or me. And we all know that but sometimes our behavior grants us a different delusion, we choose to categorize, rename, label it something else, other than an all access pass and so we suffer on in the delusion that we are in control when in truth, we are anything but.
For me, it is like once I have opened my heart to someone (regardless of whether or not that was a good idea to begin with) I forget that I am still in charge of the access to my heart, body, mind and soul. It is me that should and has the responsibility as gate keeper. And just because someone is banging on the entrance, does not mean that they should be granted access or passage, let alone all access.
What seems to baffle me repeatedly is this idea that I have the power to grant access without granting the all access pass and so far, that just doesn’t hold up. I think that I am just allowing a ticket to a particular part of me, but in reality it is just the precursor to the all access pass. I give it out in installments and therefore call it something else but it is not any less an all access pass just because it is metered out in smaller increments. All access is full access regardless of whether it is done in stages or with one swooping maneuver.
The resounding question that I cannot answer is why do I keep the door open, even a crack, when everything in my experience tells me that it should be otherwise. Why are my boundaries porous and malleable when circumstances call for hard and rigid?
The only answer that comes to me at the moment is that the all access pass is just another form of self abuse. One that pretends to be something else altogether so it slips past my radar and defense system whereby the time I realize I have been breached, it is far too late to conjure a battle to stop the take over.
I have desperately wanted the knowledge and self awareness to be enough but apparently it is not. In fact, well I don’t know what I was going to say here because my thoughts were interrupted by an earthquake while in the middle of a hurricane that is not really a hurricane. We are all safe but fuck if I can remember where I was going with “in fact”.
Wait, I think I remember - In fact, knowledge and self awareness are actually perhaps the precursor to me setting myself up for disaster one more time...again, still.
Just like I break my own heart repeatedly, I apparently set myself up to grant all access passes to people who not only don’t deserve them but are woefully uninterested in me as a person or the fact that I am granting them a full access pass. I offer up so much to receive so little. Me, I do this, not them. Me. I am the problem...again, still.
So for now, I am out of all access passes, really for anyone except those who are in my deep inner circle (you know who you are). She challenged me to write about this today and so here it is. My thoughts, which I am sure she will find interesting, perhaps laughable and perhaps even contemptuous, but I know that whatever she finds, she will tell me the truth as she sees it and she always does this because she loves me and values me and is most deserving of an all access pass from me. Ok, Dalis, you get one, you have been a true blue, ride or die for me for years. You get the all access pass, and know that you are always in my inner sanctum, well as close as anyone gets to that - and trust me, the distance you are kept is for your own good, shit is crazy up in here!
Seriously though, have you reviewed your all access pass people? Maybe it is time to do so, you might find it startling and revealing and in so doing, a place and time to make some changes in how you do you.
So, in review, grant only those an all access pass to those who have proven themselves reliable, loving and capable of showing up for you. Otherwise, all you are really doing is creating your own side show, where you are in fact the main attraction and the spectators always get in free.
