There’s a scene in Runaway Bride where in Richard Gere’s big
rom com speech to Julia Roberts he accuses her of not knowing how she likes her
eggs. He says you just conform and ‘have what he’s having’ (he being her
current fiancé) and, as such, she doesn’t actually know who she is. So as any
rom com heroine would do, she goes through a montage of cooking and tasting
each type of egg there is. Then in her big rom com speech to Richard Gere she triumphantly
declares “I love eggs Benedict, I hate every other kind”. And that’s that! Self,
considered yourself discovered. What I’m trying to say is, if only everything were eggs.
There is no doubt that I’ve been a bad decision maker in my
day. It’s pretty classic Sarah to debate between two flavors of ice-cream
(rocky road or coffee) and then panic at the last minute and order something totally
different (rainbow sherbet). Ice cream is a pretty
harmless example, but it’s not an isolated one. I struggle to make choices,
especially ones that are relatively insignificant. What color dress should I buy? Where do you want to go to dinner? Do I
actually like these shoes? Sure, none of those choices are do or die, but I
know that really this inability to decide and say what I want are superficial
signs of not actually knowing myself very well. Besides, it annoys the hell out
of the people in my life. Especially because my default is ‘whatever you want!”
in response to most questions, even when do have an opinion. Issue being, I
would rather avoid conflict than get what I think
I want. I say think because truthfully I’m probably not sure if Thai food IS
what I want for dinner.
I read an article recently that centered around the term ‘confusion’, based on advice for someone who was the victim of another person’s
confusion/inaction/laziness/selfishness. I happen to have a foot in both camps,
both the confused person and the one who has felt totally vulnerable waiting on
someone else to make up their mind about me. It’s not fair either way. In the
article the author suggests to not tolerate confusion until the “guy walks
straight up to you and uses his words to say: “I want to be your boyfriend and nothing else will do”. Damn. I
react so strongly to other people’s declarations, yet I STRUGGLE to do the
same, even down to silly things. “Just tell me what you want” is something I’ve
gotten multiple times, and god I wish I could. This brings me back full circle to
the first issue of not really knowing myself well enough to know what I want to
begin with.
I’m rambling, let’s bring it back to eggs. The eggs formula
is a two part success: 1. methodically going through choices with an unbiased
view 2. when you decide what you want you actually share it and act on it. “I
love eggs Benedict, I hate every other kind.” Even with a script like she has,
I’m not sure I could do it for fear of being rejected, being wrong, or regretting
it. We're back to square one.
So friends, I wish I could tie this up in a nice little bow
with a solution on top, but I can’t. I wish I could say wake up each morning,
look in the mirror and repeat “I like my eggs *insert your preference here*” but
honestly, I think I would just end up hungry. Here is what I can do. I’m going
to try and break things down like Julia Roberts did with her eggs. I’m not
talking ice cream flavors here (boy would that hold up a line) but the bigger
things. Write down everything involved in the decision, rank importance, and
then practice saying out loud what it is that makes it important to you. But note, you
don’t have to justify your opinions to anyone else.
The other thing I’m going to do is to try and stop asking
for help on these decisions, and really listen to my gut and my own logic. I
fall into the trap of letting someone else’s opinion lead mine, and it devalues
my opinions- even if they don’t mean it that way and even if I asked for their
input to begin with. I need to be the one scrambling the eggs and living with
the results. Fine, fine enough with the egg metaphors.
Moral of the story is listen to yourself. Your voice
manifests in many different ways and it will get quieter and quieter if no one
is listening to it. Find people who you
feel comfortable flexing this new decision muscle with and treat them to
some ice cream for being patient with you. Saying thank you to them instead of
sorry will get you far, but that’s a memo for another day.
With love and whisks,
Sarah Belle
