Scraps

I have noticed a pattern in my life. A pattern that is ugly and gaudy. A pattern—that I want to change. I want to change it right now.

I have been a settler. I have been a woman whom has settled for scraps and thought I was having the best parts and not the cast offs—the parts most would scrape into the garbage—this has been what I have kindly taken as my due. No more. No more will I settle for the least of things while living in fear that this is all there is to be offered to me.

The common denominator in it all is me. It is my behavior whether I realized it or not. It is me and I allowed it. I wonder how I end up in the very same spot no matter which road I start on. I am the one who winds up with a huge plate of nothing and it takes me too long to realize that it is just that—nothing. It has taken me even longer to understand that I want, need and deserve much more and that I have the right to expect to get as much as I give.

When I look back on the relationships I have been in and the men I have loved I see things now that I didn’t see before. I see how easily I accepted the tid-bits thinking that I was accepting the man. I see how understanding I tried to be of obligations in busy lives and failed to expect that I should be a top priority. My eyes have opened painfully to the simple turns of phrase I have used, “When you have time” or “If it isn’t an inconvenience...” and “I don’t want to be a bother so I will wait til you are ready”

In my mind, I was being patient. I was being non-pushy. I was being non-aggressive and undemanding. I made myself this woman waiting in shadows instead of standing right in the center of it and saying, “I need you now and I expect you to be there when I need you just as I am for you.”

I wonder how I became her—this woman who has no trouble offering the best of me, the most of me and the every part of me at the drop of hat. Yet, I never felt anyone else should do the same. I never demanded they did. I simply settled for the scraps of time thrown my way as complacently as a dog waiting under the table for food to drop from careless mouths. I look behind me now and find it all pathetic and sad.

How dare I do that to myself? How dare any one not value the gifts I brought to the table and only considered me an afterthought. How dare I settle for less when I gave so much more?

I did it to myself. I have no one to blame but me. It has been said you cannot change anyone else—you can only change yourself. I am. Today. This moment. Right now.

I am taking the scraps offered and throwing them in the garbage where they belong and always belonged. I will save my appetite for an entire meal...including dessert.

Monika M. Basile