When I was a late teenager, I was turned down by a slightly older boy who told me he “really liked me, but didn’t have the bandwidth for a complicated relationship.”
He was certainly right that the relationship would have been complicated, mostly because of the consequences of my extremely low emotional maturity level at the time. But I didn’t understand this idea of “not having the bandwidth.” I was defiant. What do you mean, you don’t have the “bandwidth”? Can’t you just…make more bandwidth?
If I was going to be rejected, I wanted there to be a worthy explanation. Maybe he could be about to move out of the country, or maybe he could be in love with someone else, or maybe he could hate me. All of those would have been acceptable reasons to turn down a relationship. A boundary on emotional capacity, set gently and firmly with no further explanation? Unacceptable.
This was my first experience with the idea of capacity: the maximum amount that something - or someone - can possibly hold at a given time. Unless you were raised in a house where healthy boundaries were modeled, your first experience was probably also on the receiving end of a boundary. It feels deeply painful, and sometimes infuriating, if you aren’t used to people protecting their own time and space. If that was not your culture - at home, in your community, in your genes - then a gentle articulation of someone’s bandwidth limit stings worse than outright rejection. Outright rejection is comprehensible; it fits into your worldview. Personal boundaries, and the dedication to upholding them, do not fit.
I have no idea where that boy is now, but I look back on his words with admiration. Whether it was from his upbringing, therapy, or something else, he had a wisdom I would not grow into for almost another decade. I wasn’t ready to respect him then, but I respect him now.
You see, the other role, the role of a boundary-setter, is much more difficult. It takes a lot of bravery and a lot of hard emotional labor to get to a place of knowing and acknowledging your own capacity, and it takes even more to feel strong enough to speak up when your bandwidth is being drained by someone who has not done the emotional work of knowing any better. It was very brave of the boy who turned me down to look at me, a mess of unacknowledged traumas, insecurities, and toxic behaviors, and speak his truth, knowing it probably wouldn’t be received well.
I know all of this now because these days, this is the role I live in. Working in a caregiving profession threw me into the deep end of boundary-crossings and forced me to either tread water forever or learn to swim out. Life in the last few years has forced me to confront and reckon with the issue of capacity almost every day. I know the pain of trying to maintain your own boundaries to people who will kick and scream and cry in protest. I know what it’s like to be, as an old therapist once said, living with a mile-high stack of books permanently balanced in your hands: sure, you can keep holding it, but if one person asks you to hold one more tiny thing, you will collapse completely.
What I wish for us is this: that if you relate to me now, you hold firm and back away and don’t let anyone cross the alligator-filled moat into the palace of your life unless they have absolutely earned the privilege of being there (a metaphor from our beloved Glennon Doyle).
And if you relate more to me then, when I was a hurt, angry teenager pounding at the door of someone’s life and demanding to be let in? I would beg you to take some time for reflection, both internally and externally. Do the work, both alone and in the company of a therapist or a peer whose emotional maturity you admire. Let yourself be humble enough to realize the damage you've caused by waiting this long to start. Love yourself enough to start now.
What to Eat:
Lunch is chronically a problem for me, and I know I’m not the only one. The way I sometimes solve this problem for short bursts of time is by finding a lunch dish, hyper-fixating on it, and making enough of it to eat every day so I have one less decision to make in a given day. Yes, this is meal prep, even for working at home. No, I don’t ALWAYS do this, let’s be real. But it’s only right to share my current hyper-fixation with you, which is this incredibly delicious warm couscous “salad” (I use the term generously):
Slice chicken breasts into thin cutlets and marinate them in ½ cup of greek yogurt, the juice of half a lemon, a couple of cloves of minced garlic, Za’Atar spice, olive oil, salt, and pepper for at least an hour.
Air fry or bake them - I own an air fryer now, and I am fully on the bandwagon, so I air fry mine at 375° for about 15-18 minutes, flipping halfway.
Cook up some pearl couscous, then add it to a large bowl.
Open up a can of the beloved Trader Joe’s Greek chickpeas that I have already talked about in this newsletter once - that’s how much I love them. Add them all to the bowl.
Toss in the following goodies: finely diced cucumber, steamed and chopped broccoli, lots of finely chopped parsley, crumbled feta cheese, pistachios, and a hearty drizzle of good olive oil.
Dice or shred your cooked chicken and add it all to the bowl. Give things a final mix, portion out, and enjoy.
On Repeat:
When the Black Panther soundtrack first came out in 2018, it was a brutally hard time in my life, and I latched on to that album for escape. I’m a bit ashamed to say that I then forgot about it until it re-appeared in a Spotify playlist a few weeks ago. But let’s be real: this is one of the greatest soundtrack albums of all time. Curated by Kendrick Lamar, it earned a Grammy nomination for album of the year - a feat that not many movie soundtracks accomplish. If you, like me, forgot about it, maybe it’s high time to listen again.