Boundaries protect a person’s personal or mental space, much like fences between neighbors…
— from an article by Michelle C. Brooten-Brooks on VeryWellHealth.com
I get the impression that setting personal boundaries is a lot more popular that it used to be. Guns are also a lot more popular, but this essay is about personal boundaries. Specifically, my own.
When I was younger, and someone was invading my personal space and making me feel uncomfortable, I thought the polite thing was to smile and act like everything was okay. And then look at my watch.
All that time, I could have been setting boundaries. But apparently personal boundaries weren’t invented until, like, 1988. And they didn’t arrive in Pagosa until about 2012.
I have now set some personal boundaries. There are more that need to be set, but for the time being, at least I have a few already. For example, my cat Roscoe is not allowed to sleep on my pillow. He can sleep on the blanket, at the foot of my bed, but not on my pillow.
Roscoe doesn’t always respect my boundaries, and I have to remind him, by tossing him (gently) onto the floor. I suspect that he fully understands English, but he acts like he doesn’t, so I typically have to resort to a (gentle) toss. Not like, across the room, as tempting as that might be. But definitely, onto the floor.
I wish I had known about boundaries back when I was married to Darlene. I mean, consciously known about them. Darlene and I actually did have some boundaries, but we didn’t call them “boundaries”. They were just things to fight about.
One of Darlene’s boundaries was the trash. She didn’t empty the trash. It was understood, if the trash needed to be emptied — and it did, constantly — that the chore would be left up to me. Didn’t matter how full the trash got; Darlene was not going to empty it.
She was perfectly comfortable putting things into the trash. But not taking things out. It was a boundary of hers.
Of course, I had my own boundaries. Don’t talk to me about yard work when I’m watching the game.
Some self-help experts would probably argue that it’s technically not a personal boundary, if it’s a limit on the other person’s actions. Like for example, “Don’t talk to me when I’m watching the game” was not “my personal boundary”; it was a “boundary” I was trying to impose on Darlene. (Often, unsuccessfully.)
In order to qualify as “my personal boundary” — some say — it has to be a limit on my own behavior. These self-help experts would recommend that I stop trying to control the other person and resolve the situation myself, by taking appropriate steps to defend my personal space. Which would mean, heading down to the Pagosa Bar to watch the game, where — if anyone is talking — at least they are usually talking about the game.
Roscoe is not a “person” per se, so I don’t know quite how to feel about tossing him out of the bed.
They don’t have pillows at the Pagosa Bar, so the options are limited.
As I said, I have now identified a few boundaries — not soon enough to save my marriage, but better late than never. One of the boundaries is vaccines.
I am not opposed to vaccines, which would be silly anyway, considering they are everywhere. My boundary is, “Don’t talk to me about vaccines when I’m watching the game.” You’d be surprised how many people at the Pagosa Bar, these days, want nothing more than to talk about vaccines.
So I usually watch the game at home.
Another boundary is not loaning money to my ex-wife. That’s a fairly new boundary, and I’m not going to get into a long story about it. The editor pays me for 500 words, max. That’s his personal boundary.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.