Even Sarah.

Being a quiet kid growing up, I sat back and watched the interactions and behavior of people. I was an insecure kid and the way I combatted it was to only speak when spoken to and be nice so I wouldn’t open myself up to ridicule. I watched what happened when the other kids who “weren’t cool” spoke too much and were shoved down with cruelty. My worst nightmare. 

Like everyone, I still have insecurities as an adult. However, I have found embracing them is more productive than denying them. Sharing them with others has surprisingly allowed me to connect with people in ways I never imagined. In undergraduate school, I decided to pursue two majors: Communication and Psychology. I use both every day and have in every job I have had. Studying both Communication and Psychology in conjunction with a lot of personal therapy, has allowed me to see people in a different light had I studied something else or not gone to therapy.

I have mentioned in previous posts we are all a million different people. We are good, we are bad, we are selfish, we are selfless, we are fake, we are genuine, we are narcissistic, we are honest, we are liars, we are aware, we are unaware, we are scared, we are brave and on and on and on. We hold others to unattainable standards and get mad when the same is thrust upon us. Human beings and our behavior are incredibly fascinating to me. 

The first time I remember being fascinated with human behavior was in the fourth grade. To make school bearable, I did what any other little girl probably does – I scoped out the boy or boys to have crushes on (or girls, depending on your preference). To this day, I can still name all of my crushes by first and last name since I can remember (Jonathan Cooper was my first crush at age three).

In fourth grade, I had a crush on a boy named Derek. Like everything else, I was quiet about my crushes or at least I thought I was. I remember waiting in line with the rest of my class at the end of recess to go back into the school building. Derek was two students ahead of me in line. I don’t remember the entire context of the situation, but the girl in front of me proclaimed, “Derek! Lexi has a crush on you!”

My world stopped and panic set in. My face burned. “Oh my god, they know!” I screamed internally. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now being all “into the universe and shit”, I look back at this moment as a universal intervention. I have NO idea what came over me, but my shy fourth grade self just boasted, “Yep! I do! I love Derek! I am just sooooooo in love with him!” – which, I mean, I was… at least what I thought love was in fourth grade.

Something bizarre happened and this was an incredible ah-ha moment for me. The subject was dropped. They went on with their days like nothing happened and nothing more was said because they didn’t think it bothered me. 

“Holy shit.” I was shocked. How that worked was beyond me. Fast forward, that little girl who accused me of having a crush on Derek went on to actually date him (bitch). Just kidding. I am so over Derek.

And thus my love of psychology began.

 As an adult, I still pay close attention to human behavior and the why. I am always fascinated with the why. Why do they act like that? More so in the last couple of years, I have worked really hard on practicing introspection and actually focus more on my own behavior and ask, “Why do I act like that”. Practicing more self awareness has allowed me to have more forgiveness for others and their “less than desirable behavior”, because I’m just as guilty of having the same “less than desirable behaviors” from time to time. 

During my divorce, it came to my attention that my best friend at the time – we’ll call her Sarah –  was telling people I was a narcissist. Finding this out cut and cut deep. This is someone who I had cared for very deeply. She was someone I let in, which was rare for me at the time, and was someone I was incredibly vulnerable with in sharing quite a bit. I thought the feeling was mutual. Clearly, it was not.

  So, am I a narcissist? According to Sarah, apparently, which is her right.  According to my therapist, I’m not. So there’s that. Anyone on social media displays narcissistic tendencies.  It’s no secret I’m on social media a lot. I use it for business purposes and my real estate business was starting to take off at the time. 

I’ve done a lot of retrospection on Sarah. Sarah was the type of friend when things were not going well for me professionally, she was there for me. However, when I started to gain momentum in my career, supportive is the last thing I would classify her as. This really bothered me considering I was always really happy for her whenever she told me about anything good going on in her life. When going through my divorce, there was almost a joy she took in my pain that I was failing. It felt almost as though she was waiting for me to fall.

After everything unfolded and doing a lot of work, I came to the realization that Sarah couldn’t be happy for anyone’s success, because she herself was not a happy person. Her happiness, or lack thereof, was not my problem, it was hers. Just like my happiness is no one else’s problem, but mine and your happiness is no one else’s problem but yours.  For that reason, I feel sorry for Sarah and forgive her. It took me a long time to get to that place. I haven’t spoken to Sarah in years and have no plans to, but I truly hope she’s learned or is working towards learning how to be happy. Everyone deserves to be happy (three years ago, I would have added “even Sarah”).   

And that, my friends, is growth.