In examining the interpersonal relationships I’ve had that exist outside of my immediate family I identified a trend:

There have been several iterations of people over the years who would put me down in order to build themselves up. I never understood that behavior as it would usually come from someone who presented themselves as being a friend, mentor, or guide of some sort and doing it for my own good.

There was a time in elementary school where I was lined up to go into the top level math class and a kid in my class looked at me and said “you don’t belong in this class”.

There was another time in middle school where I weathered several months of verbal insults from a “friend” who was always just playing. The insults usually placed us on some sort of scaling that always placed him as being better or superior in some light. Where there were clear distinctions in my superiority those attributes were downplayed as being less than valuable or of no consequence.

To be clear, there were no celebrations of my talents, interests, or skills. Just an amplification of theirs.

I won’t go down the long list of instances I recall, but what I will share is that these instances played in my mind recently and as I reflected I shared the following in a tweet.

I’ve had so many encounters in my life where someone would try to steal my light by putting me down. But that’s the thing about light, it can NEVER be stolen.

In most of these interactions it wasn’t enough to simply try and put me down and walk away. These people seemed drawn to me. Not jealousy, but a coveting of something I had. It seemed to frustrate them that they didn’t know quite what it was they wanted from me so they stuck around. Kind of like a moth attracted to a light in the darkness.

In my naivety I nurtured most of those interactions under the assumption that we were friends (or friendly).

Instead of a bright hot light, I became a cooling oasis in a desert.

I found myself frequently being the helper, the strong friend, the concerned friend, the ride or die, the dependable one. All while being called sensitive, needy, demanding, overbearing, and controlling when I would enforce my boundaries.

I began to accept the notion that there will never be an equal exchange of energies and that I’d always be the giver. That rather than attempt to decrease the intensity by which I gave that I should be more selective in who I gave to.

“Light” can be defined in many ways and no way simultaneously.

It can be your “goodness”.

It can be the energy that you bring to relationships and environments.

It can be your innocence.

It can be your ability to weather and reject the corrosive elements of the worlds greed, envy, and hate.

However it is you define light, know this: It can NEVER be stolen only dimmed, given away, or snuffed out. All of which rests in your decision to do so.

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