The Cost of Boundaries and Loopholes

Sitting on the chair in my office, my daughter shared a story about work... A customer desired a phone and the phone wouldn't arrive in the store until after she picked it up on her way in to work, the next day. She asked the customer to stop by at noon, and the customer asked if she could meet her at the store at ten. She said, "No, I'll be here to open at noon." The customer tried again, "I'd like to have my phone." She said, "I'd like to spend some time with my children, before I come in to work."


Life sometimes revolves around boundaries...

Those we set for ourselves and those that others set for us. I struggle with boundaries, fences, doors and locks. To be honest, I've had too many locked doors in my life. I've been locked out, locked in and locked up, by the desire others had to protect themselves, their stuff, or ME. I'm not a fan. But over the past couple of years, I've again learned to lock my doors, lock up my stuff, and lock out the struggles.

More than anything else, I'm learning to set boundaries. Fences, if  you will, around my heart, in my life are not really welcome. I don't like them. I don't like walls. I'm not fond of boundaries of any kind, to be perfectly direct and specific. I wish there were no need for them. But, I'm finding they're required.

There are those who take advantage of a person, if boundaries are not hard line, specific and set in stone.

I've never been one of those takers. I have, however, had takers draw blood as they left me dying in pain on the table of life.

Clients, particularly those who are abusive and mean spirited about getting their fair share and sucking the life out of any who will allow them, tend to take me to the cleaners... Because I have a dedicated sense of 'meeting the customers needs' and 'going beyond the call of duty'. I've learned, however, that when they step over the line, once I've been force to draw one, that I take no prisoners and survivors are simply shot again. And again. Until they're no longer surviving.

Some bridges must be burned.

Family, I tend to overlook and accept their differences and abuses long after I should have whacked their knee caps and left them for buzzard bait. Married twice, both times to excessively emotionally abusive men, I ducked that bullet the last time, realizing long before the wedding bells might have kicked in that I wasn't interested in a third go-round with another abusive son of a backstabber. My own family has been abusive and mean spirited enough for all of them... Cutting to the quick, every time they have an opportunity, and speaking or calling only when they have a need... Their need. Not mine.

Friends, those ones that have been your friend, that you call once or twice a year because that's what friends too... Have provided the biggest shocker of them all. I call. They don't. Interesting combination there. I've called and gone to visit many of them. Yet those same friends drive within a mile of my home, brag about stopping to eat at a Denver hot spot - about two miles away, and don't bother to call and say, "Hey, I'm in town, wanna meet up and have a cuppa?"

Others who take advantage of your boundaries are just there to break through the loopholes and irritate you. Seriously, there are those who do that. 

If you're one who isn't good at setting boundaries, struggles with finding solutions for those who walk all over your boundaries when you do set them... don't feel bad... you're not alone. I'm right here with you!