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Even the Constitution gets amended on occasion.
What’s important here is that I’m making progress. Even baby steps forward count. I draw a line through the rules of my hatched plan and, beneath them, begin a new rulebook for life the next six days, starting tomorrow.
Keep it simple.
Keep it clear.
The Christmas No List
Objective: Collect ten rejections by Christmas and, in doing so, experience a breakthrough in breaking the cycle of chronic people-pleasing.
Rules:
Gain ten rejections by Christmas.
No family members
No Genie
Cost: Looking crazy to a few total strangers
Reward: Sanity. Personal victory. Taking back my life.
Done.
So I am not going to need ten, and I quote, “full-on rejections by Christmas while being unyielding to my pathetic people-pleasing ways or else my personal project fails.” (I actually wrote that down.) That was, I can see now, a little harsh, and people think a little more harshly than they should when faced with an emotional crisis.
So I screwed up by accepting the stupid coffee from Dom and placating him and Peter. Fine. I’m not perfect. But I am making progress.
It’s more important that I keep the rules clear and gain ten simple rejections. No more losing points if I fail. No more getting half points if they shock me (cue James) by saying yes to a ludicrous request.
Just. Get. Ten. Nos.
I purse my lips as I work through the day’s events to tally up my points: the flight with the extraordinarily submissive middle-aged accounting professor, Fred (where my legalistic brain will still zero myself out given I was living under former rules), followed by the airport ride with James, the snow dance, the pause for the Christmas tree tradition, and karaoke.
Which leads me to a final tally of (drumroll, please) . . .
Zero.
Insanely.
ZERO.
Courage, Chloe. You had a rough first day. You had to fine-tune your mission. You are still moving forward. Now, just with the kinks worked out. This is still possible.
I spend the next hour brainstorming ways to earn rejections in the days to come, but ultimately the stress of imagining myself in these humiliating situations is so taxing that I end up biting my nail until it bleeds and have to cut myself off from the topic so I can sleep.
My thoughts weave temporarily over to James and what exactly is going on between us, but my fears and hopes there are twice as stressful and agitating as the idea of obtaining future rejections, so I force myself to avoid the topic of him as well.
Best not to think about him. Best not to hope and just let things fall as they may.
And most of all, best to get some sleep and wake up in the morning armed and ready to snag some major rejections.
My first rejection has come.
One point down, thanks to a passing mail carrier who blissfully had zero interest in accommodating my request to scrape ice off my truck windshield with a credit card.
His disgusted face and clear dislike of me led to one point.
