After a day

After a day, or has it been two? of cogitation, I've come to realize that mattering is overrated. Seriously. Why should I even care if I matter to anyone else? That's just letting my happiness depend on what someone else does. How long have I been declaring that other people's opinions of me are none of my business, but it took this situation to really, truly internalize that lesson. 

So I'm just going to be myself. If other people like it, fine. If they don't like it, also fine. I can't keep banging my head against the wall and thinking, "Oh, but if I do this, they won't LIKE me anymore?" Minus one text conversation, there are people I haven't heard from in over two months, and they seem to getting on just fine without me. Okay, then... If that's how it goes, I accept it. At least it didn't come as a surprise this time, as it did two years ago when I was pushed out of the group. Everybody got on just fine without me around then, too, so why should this go-round be any different? I didn't expect it to be, and so far, I haven't been disappointed.

There's a verse from a poem, The Indispensable Man, that about sums it up:

"Take a bucket and fill it with water,

Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that's remaining,
Is a measure of how much you'll be missed.
You can splash all you wish when you enter,
You may stir up the water galore,
But stop, and you'll find that in no time,

It looks quite the same as before. "

So I'm looking into other ways of making a difference in the world, not because I expect anyone to remember me... I've already learned that lesson: that's not gonna happen... but because I'm determined to leave the world a better place than I found it somehow. Who cares who remembers me after I'm gone, unless they're having a Mass said for my soul. I hope at least someone remembers to do that.