Difficult Women

It wasn’t until I was married that I was labeled difficult.

I am sooooooo Ennegram 8…punch first, ask questions later. I’ve landed in FB jail numerous times for sticking up for someone.

The worst, most defeating comment I’d ever received was, “Why can’t you keep quiet and be the bigger person? Why can’t you just let things go?”

And that was from my (then) husband.

I *was* being the bigger person…standing up for myself and those around me who were being wronged. Someone has to. Silence and complacency are consent.

It took me two years to unravel those words and chuck them in the fuckit bucket.

I started this drawing earlier this year, with no intentions of it having any therapeutic value, until someone said, “You know that gardeners will prune their plants so they can grow bigger, right?”

Whaaaaaat?

I reframed everything I’d been told, both growing up and during my marriage, and flipped the script.

Every time I tried to adjust to someone’s issues with my big-ass personality, I got more depressed. No idea who I was anymore.

I redrew the original picture, replanting myself in much more fertile soil. My own.