May 2026 Issue This year I am trying to live my life the way I want to live it, as a treat, as an experiment, and as a (sometimes) insult to others. I think I am at a place where I feel people should be able to handle their own feelings of rejection and talk about them if there's a problem, instead of "assuming someone will feel rejected if I prioritize myself first." It's weird to talk about because it sounds like I'm making brash statements about the people I know; I am not. Instead I've been assuming my whole life that people can't handle a "no" and that I'm a bad person if I say it. Because it's actually pretty reasonable for the people who love you to want to see you during spring and summer; those are the social seasons for most of the world. But it's also very reasonable to look out for your own capacity, give yourself grace for disability and inability to show up every time, and expect people to bring it up if they feel weird about it.

So if you're wondering whether your "anxiety" or "people pleasing tendencies" will ever go away: It won't, not with time, not with passivity. It will only go away if you work on it, actively, and try to combat the things that bother you. It will not simply disappear into the wind as you age as sometimes other things do. It is always a journey. I hope that whatever you are struggling with, you're able to break some ground this month. Even if things don't change how you want them to, change is still a reminder that things can change.