The further back in time I go, the less it seems I cared about feeling accepted, being accepted, or doing anything acceptable.

I think, with time, most people – if they’re lucky – shake off a lot of the deadweight that comes with caring too much about any version of acceptance-by-others.

I appear to have grown into mine.

Even now I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time fretting over it – not consciously, at any rate – but when I do, I really give it my all. Yes, I go on a smidgen about not feeling accepted. But I tell you true, there are days I actively watch the words “I need someone to validate this thing I’m doing” march across my mind.

There are parts of my life where that’s basically the motto. It’s nothing so simple (or simpering) as pleasing someone or ones. I’m not trying to win a popularity contest. It really is as straightforward as I said. I need to know that someone (in particular, usually) believes that what I’m doing is what we might loosely refer to as “right.”

Right for…?

That’s the thing. It has to be exactly what I think a certain person wants for a specific occasion.

I speak here not of life-or-death things like which hospital or whether or not to call the armed forces. I’m thinking of things like table decorations and curtains.

You should not expect a person of my advanced years to be brought low by needing to choose between the white tablecloth or the cream one. And yet I’ve been reduced to tears over less. Ridiculous is in the eye of the beholder.

The beholder has never set out nine cream tablecloths only to be told they were so distressing a sight it would be better to set the tables on fire rather than have anyone see them. (So why do we have nine cream tablecloths?)

The thing is, my life is populated by individuals of very strong ideas.

I have a wild notion that in the bigger world I can take care of myself. This idea flat-out drops dead in the face of my most beloveds. They are not bad. They are simply stronger.

On giving

Not as in presents. So I noticed something about the way in which I was succumbing to the will of both the elders and youngers of the clan.

I was not always screaming and wailing like I used to do. I didn’t always see it as giving up or giving way. And if I had to do something tortured like painting a wall, instead of, say, not doing it at all, I might not see it as giving too much. Even if I had a deadline not sneaking, but shouting at me.

The need for acceptance and the idea of giving too much of yourself could easily be treated as two separate discussions. But those narratives are endlessly worked out in books and online journals and all sorts of websites.

One of my sisters refers to some people as “givists.” They will not only give you the shirt off their back, they’ll take you to have it dry-cleaned and altered to your size. Then they will offer you their pants.

The ideas of accepting and giving, or not accepting and not giving, or any combination thereof meet in the mind. They meet at a point of self-preservation or maybe even