One thing I’d change

I tend to love most everything about myself. I am pretty amazing. I like myself. Really, truly. There are minor things I hate, of course. My hair has thinned after pregnancy and I now have this awful cowlick at the back of my head. I have chin hairs now. The leg hair at the back of my thighs grows in weirdly and I can never shave my legs properly. But, for the most part, I like myself and I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I’m happily content with who I am.

There is one thing though. I am quick to want to remove people from my life. I can be entirely unforgiving if someone displays a character trait I despise. If they allow people in their lives who are pretty gross. And I hate that about myself. In the past I have removed people from my life and, for the most part, it’s worked out well but… sometimes I do wonder if I am too quick to judge. Am I too quick to brand someone a terrible person?

I believe that if someone makes a racist joke they’re a racist. I don’t like being around people who drink and judge others for not doing so. My mum used to make jokes about people from different cultures and everyone around her laughed at these “jokes”. She used to speak about my siblings behind their backs, teasing them for the path they’d chosen or the colour of their nipples. The rest of my family was pretty much the same. So negative. So awful. The people on my dad’s side still spoke to him — my abuser — and I just… I just couldn’t deal with any of them.

And aside from the racism where I believe there is no excuse, I do wonder if I’m too quick to judge. Too quick to end friendships or let silences stretch on forever. And why am I like this? I am by no means perfect so why do I expect others to be?

This is something I’m constantly working on. I’m always trying to be and do better but the feeling is still there. I still get that itch to no longer speak to people again after they say something I don’t like. But I don’t want to be that way. I certainly don’t want my Husband to be scared I’ll do the same to him.

But how do you change something so ingrained in who you are? Can you ever? Am I always destined to be so ruthless and cruel? Or can I change?