Monika Basile's Blog: Confessions of a Bleeding Heart - Posts Tagged "choice"
The Ultimatum
I have never believed in ultimatums—at least until I needed to give one. I never thought it was fair or right to expect someone to do anything if they did not choose it themselves, if they did not come to some conclusion that something must change. I never felt it was good to impose what I believed on anyone else.
What I didn’t realize is that an ultimatum doesn’t actually make anyone choose anything one way or another. The choice is in the giver of it. There comes a time in life when we inherently know what we can and cannot not live with. There comes a day when we look on our life and ask ourselves, “Can I do this another 20 years, another ten years, another year, another week, another day or even for one more hour?”
I discovered that no matter what prayer I had for another to change, the ultimatum given is to me. I had to decide that if what was destroying me did not stop—that I was worth saving. You would think that this kind of choice would be easy but it isn’t. It is devastating. It is an earthquake even if it is only that way to me. It is an actual shattering of something deep inside of a past, a present and a future even. How can that decision possibly be easy? And how do I decide and believe that I am worth saving, when for the majority of my life, I was too busy saving others to bother to examine my own existence which had been teetering on the edge too closely?
I have never been one to give up too easily—not on anything and especially not on someone I love. I guess I have always looked at it as a failing to give up on the people around me whom I hold dear. I mean what would that say about me as a person? What does it present to the world for me to put my salvation before another? What will I think of myself? I am someone who has lived their life in service to others and if I turn my back, if I say, “enough”, if I shut myself off from another—how can that possibly be true? And how do I live with the ultimatum? How do I keep going on knowing that my decision has hurt someone else?
This past year has been one of immense heartache and loss and yes—guilt. I chose me. It is not something I am used to doing. I chose my own well-being, I chose my own safety, and I chose my own peace by holding to an ultimatum to allow myself an end to what had become quite miserable. It is the aftermath part that pain lingers in. It is in this spot where I doubt myself, wondering if I tried harder for longer and did not give up. This is the thought that keeps me up at night.
It is different than regret. My mind and my heart both tell me sticking to this ultimatum is what saved me. I know the choices were very few. In the end there were only two things to choose from—fall to pieces in someone else’s destruction or go on alone. That is where the ultimatum I gave came from. Them or me. I am just not used to choosing me. I wasn’t even sure if I was capable of choosing me as the end approached.
I surprised myself. As you see, I am still here—going on.
Monika M. Basile
What I didn’t realize is that an ultimatum doesn’t actually make anyone choose anything one way or another. The choice is in the giver of it. There comes a time in life when we inherently know what we can and cannot not live with. There comes a day when we look on our life and ask ourselves, “Can I do this another 20 years, another ten years, another year, another week, another day or even for one more hour?”
I discovered that no matter what prayer I had for another to change, the ultimatum given is to me. I had to decide that if what was destroying me did not stop—that I was worth saving. You would think that this kind of choice would be easy but it isn’t. It is devastating. It is an earthquake even if it is only that way to me. It is an actual shattering of something deep inside of a past, a present and a future even. How can that decision possibly be easy? And how do I decide and believe that I am worth saving, when for the majority of my life, I was too busy saving others to bother to examine my own existence which had been teetering on the edge too closely?
I have never been one to give up too easily—not on anything and especially not on someone I love. I guess I have always looked at it as a failing to give up on the people around me whom I hold dear. I mean what would that say about me as a person? What does it present to the world for me to put my salvation before another? What will I think of myself? I am someone who has lived their life in service to others and if I turn my back, if I say, “enough”, if I shut myself off from another—how can that possibly be true? And how do I live with the ultimatum? How do I keep going on knowing that my decision has hurt someone else?
This past year has been one of immense heartache and loss and yes—guilt. I chose me. It is not something I am used to doing. I chose my own well-being, I chose my own safety, and I chose my own peace by holding to an ultimatum to allow myself an end to what had become quite miserable. It is the aftermath part that pain lingers in. It is in this spot where I doubt myself, wondering if I tried harder for longer and did not give up. This is the thought that keeps me up at night.
It is different than regret. My mind and my heart both tell me sticking to this ultimatum is what saved me. I know the choices were very few. In the end there were only two things to choose from—fall to pieces in someone else’s destruction or go on alone. That is where the ultimatum I gave came from. Them or me. I am just not used to choosing me. I wasn’t even sure if I was capable of choosing me as the end approached.
I surprised myself. As you see, I am still here—going on.
Monika M. Basile
