"no"

“No” is a really big word. In fact, it might be the tiniest big word I know.

When I’m with my littlest friends and the inevitable overuse of “no” happens as they’re playing or conversely one of the littles doesn’t honor the “no” of another, I tirelessly take the chance to remind them that “no” is a really important word. That we shouldn’t say it if we don’t mean it. And that when we say it, it should be honored by others. And if it’s not, we can get help. And that we should always honor it in others.

But lately, I’ve been thinking about a “no” that’s lived in me that I’m untangling. The reflexive resistance that’s disorienting to me because it doesn’t actually feel like who I really am. Like maybe I’ve been living a “no” in aspects where I don’t actually want to or need to.

Some of it comes from decades of others having agendas for me that I honestly just don’t want to deal with. Like my ballet teachers when I was young, wanted me to go right to pointe because my feet were “so good” for it… but I didn’t want to push and ruin my feet, I just wanted to enjoy moving my body and feeling the joy of doing it with others to create beauty in class. In high school, I had two piano teachers back-to-back burn me out because they both wanted me to be their next prodigy. I just wanted to enjoy the beauty of the melody and the feel of the action of the keys flowing without hours of technical practice of what sounded more like noise and syncopation I just didn’t care for. In college, my accounting professor wanted me to become a CPA. Men in authority in the church picked out single men they thought would be a good husband for me and talked to my dad about them as if we’re in some patriarchal arranged marriage culture… and sometimes people I’ve been around still act like it. Thankfully, my sweet dad told them he didn’t make those choices for me and if any of those single men wanted to, they would need to talk to me themselves. But talk about the ick!

I also have intentionally not learned how to do things, just so people can’t ask me to do them. It’s embarrassing to say, but after quite literally I don’t know how many years (well over 10) of helping to lead mission trips in Spanish speaking countries, I still do not speak Spanish. I loved that season so very much, but my name was called so much, about so many things for the duration of the time (anywhere from 10 days to five weeks) by pretty much everyone there (in the earliest days maybe only 12 but in the end probably at least 80 just from our groups we hosted, much less all the people there we served alongside), and I just didn’t want to be called on to do one more thing.

And sometimes, even though I know how to do things, I just don’t let on that I do. I validate people’s position, and go on my merry little way.

But in these days, I’m reevaluating. I still know I don’t want to be a piano teacher. I think it’s far too late to do pointe (and I still don’t want to). Being a CPA feels like a nightmare, although I’m grateful for the general accounting knowledge I do have as I work with different businesses and my own. I still don’t want an arranged marriage or for someone to think they have the right to pick out a spouse for me and I’m so very grateful I’ve intentionally distanced myself from that culture. Maybe at some point I do want to learn enough Spanish to get by a little bit better.

But I’m finding within me, I’ve been braced and living a “no” in some areas where maybe I don’t need to be, where I don’t want to be. And I’m recognizing that simply because people see me with favor and recognize something in me that is valuable, doesn’t inherently mean that they’re trying to push me or that they’re going to consume me. That maybe there’s a kindness, assurance, gentleness available for me in some of the things I’ve lived a “no” to up until now. That maybe I want to say “yes”. “Yes" to people and places and things I’ve blocked out.

I’ve been feeling this year like anything can happen. In fact, I told some of my local friends, I wouldn’t doubt it if we all live in different places by the end of the year. And maybe I’d be living in Texas working at a bank (that was simply the most random thing I could think of but honestly the bank part of that for sure sounds dreadful… ha!).

But maybe some of the things that are life-giving for me, that seem to come as easy as breathing, aren’t as accessible to others as I thought they were. That when people have affirmed those things in me, maybe just maybe, I need to take them a little more seriously and not resist. That maybe I have the permission to actually dream and look into what it would be like for the places and people and things that fill my life to shift and reflect more fully the essence of who I actually am as I continue to grow. That as I am being transformed more and more into who God is calling me to be, I can still say “no” where I need to, where I even want to, but that I don’t have to live a “no” anymore where I don’t actually want to. And that I can think about what I want. Not just resist when other people actually value me in self-preservation.

So my “no” can be more true, not saying it when I don’t mean it and knowing I can say it when I do mean it. Just like I hope my littlest friends do all of their days.