The Big Flush: Apparently I Get a Vote

⚠️ APPARENTLY I GET A VOTE

Glug.

There it was again.

At this point, I don’t even bother with the dramatic gasp or the Oh my Goddess, what now? I just hold out my hand.

Give me the flashlight.

Hekate raises an eyebrow.

Don’t start with me. We’ve been doing this for six fucking posts. I know the routine now. Something gurgles, she looks mysteriously unbothered, the Universe pretends it’s innocent, I swear a little, and eventually we discover something else has been wedged in the spiritual plumbing since approximately the Reagan administration.

We have a system.

So I look down into the drain and—shockingly—it’s not another year staring back at me. No ancient memory. No long-dead friendship clinging to the U-bend like it pays rent.

It’s a question.

Of course it’s a fucking question.

We just spent Part Six elbow-deep in:

Who will choose me?

Apparently the Universe has a follow-up.

Who do YOU choose?

…Excuse me?

Wait. I Get a Vote?

Well. That’s inconvenient.

I’ve spent an impressive portion of my life wondering if I was chosen at all. Do they like me? Did I say the wrong thing? Why haven’t they texted back? Are we still good? Are we still good-good or just polite-good? Should I reach out? Should I disappear? Should I become a cryptid in the woods and stop bothering everyone?

My brain has basically been running a 24/7 customer satisfaction survey nobody asked for.

HOW WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH RAE TODAY?

Was she funny enough? Too much? Not enough? Emotionally high-maintenance? Would you recommend her to a friend or quietly avoid her in the grocery store?

Good Goddess.

No wonder I’m tired.

I’ve been operating an internal help desk like:

Thank you for calling Rae Support. Your concern is very important to us. Please hold while we overthink your entire existence.

Meanwhile, I seem to have missed a fairly critical feature of human connection:

It involves two people. With opinions.

Wild.

Here’s the question I apparently forgot to ask:

Do I even like YOU?

Oh.

That’s… different.

Because wanting someone to like me and actually liking them are not the same thing. Not even close. Not even cousins.

Apparently at almost 56, I’ve just discovered I’m not only a product being evaluated.

I’m also a participant.

Groundbreaking.

Somebody alert absolutely no one—I need a minute.

My Nervous System Apparently Has Opinions

Here’s something else I didn’t always understand: I’m allowed to notice how I feel around people without immediately turning that observation into a moral judgment about them—or myself.

Maybe somebody texts and my entire body tightens.

Interesting.

Maybe I spend time with someone and afterward I need seventeen business days and a nap to recover.

Also interesting.

Maybe I become a version of myself around them that I don’t particularly recognize or enjoy.

Okay. That one’s probably worth circling.

It doesn’t automatically mean they’re horrible. It doesn’t mean I’m horrible. It doesn’t require a jury, a dramatic soundtrack, incense, or an emergency meeting of the Council of Guilt.

It’s information.

My nervous system has apparently been submitting reports for years while I kept marking them RETURN TO SENDER.

Sorry about that.

You may continue.

Well, This Changes the Seating Chart

What if belonging isn’t just about being invited to somebody else’s table?

What if I get to decide who sits at mine?

Look at that.

Almost 56 and I’ve finally discovered I’m the fucking hostess.

There really should have been a manual. Preferably one with fewer fine print loopholes and less emotional damage.

My table is not unlimited seating. We’re not dragging folding chairs out of the garage for every wandering soul who appears carrying a casserole dish full of chaos and assumes I’ll make room.

We’ve catered that event before.

The reviews were spiritually educational. And not in a fun “growth opportunity” way. More like “why is everything on fire and why am I still smiling politely” way.

At my table, I want people who make me laugh. People I can be completely ridiculous with without issuing a disclaimer first. People who don’t require me to translate myself into something smaller, quieter or more convenient before they’ll understand me.

I want people who can disagree with me without reenacting the Battle of Gettysburg. People who can say, Hey, that hurt, without setting the entire relationship on fire. People who understand that sometimes I’ll disappear into my own little world and sometimes they will too, and nobody needs to issue an Amber Alert.

Mostly, I want people who can show up as themselves and let me do the same.

No masks. No auditions. No emotional gymnastics routine with judges holding up scorecards.

And perhaps most importantly:

People I actually fucking like.

Imagine that.

Turns out that’s not selfish.

It’s just… clarity.

And honestly? About damn time.

History Doesn’t Come With Assigned Seating

This one is annoying.

History matters to me. Shared memories matter. Years matter. Loving someone matters.

But none of those things automatically equal compatibility.

You can love somebody and still not like who you become around them. You can share twenty years of history and realize you’ve only had about six months of actual present-day connection. You can care deeply about someone and still notice every conversation leaves you feeling like you’ve been emotionally tumble-dried on high and then forgotten in the dryer lint trap of your own nervous system.

And here’s the part younger me would have fought me on:

Nobody has to be the villain.

I used to think if a relationship changed or ended, somebody had to be wrong. There had to be evidence. Receipts. Witnesses. Closing arguments. Possibly a Netflix documentary narrated by someone with a soothing British accent explaining what went wrong in a group chat from 2009.

Now I understand something simpler.

Sometimes people just stop fitting.

That’s it.

No trial.

No orange jumpsuits.

No dramatic true-crime reenactment with ominous music and slow zooms on text messages.

Just two people whose lives, values, needs, or emotional wiring stopped syncing the way they once did.

And yeah—
that can be sad without being wrong.

Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is stop trying to force a shape that no longer exists and let it be what it is now, instead of what it used to be.

The Table Has a Few Rules

Relax. I’m not laminating them. I’m not framing them. I’m not handing out printed copies at the door like some kind of emotional bouncer.

You don’t have to call me every day. Good Goddess, please don’t. I like my own company and occasionally require long stretches of silence where I wander around my house having full conversations with myself and nobody gets hurt.

You don’t have to agree with me. You don’t have to love what I love. You don’t even have to understand why something completely ridiculous just made my entire week better.

But you do have to respect it.

Don’t make me smaller so you feel more comfortable standing next to me.

Don’t expect endless understanding while offering none in return.

Don’t confuse forgiveness with permission.

And don’t show up at my table starving, consume everything I offer, and then complain about the menu like I didn’t cook it with care.

I’m generous.

But I’m not a buffet.

I’m not a buffet.

Oh.

I like that one.

I glance at Hekate.

“Write that down.”

She gives me the look.

Fine.

I’ll remember it myself.

And No, We’re Not Cutting Everybody Off

Because somewhere on the internet, somebody is already yelling:

CUT THEM OFF!

Friend forgot your birthday?

CUT THEM OFF.

Took six hours to answer a text?

TOXIC. BLOCKED. MOVE TO ANOTHER STATE.

Partner bought the wrong cheese?

DIVORCE.

Okay, depending on the cheese, we may need a conversation.

But calm down.

Humans are messy.

People screw up. I screw up. People get distracted, misunderstand things, forget important dates, say the wrong thing and occasionally love us in ways that don’t look exactly like the love we were hoping to receive.

One crappy Tuesday isn’t a pattern.

What matters is what happens over time.

Can I be myself around this person? Can I tell the truth without bracing for impact? When something goes wrong, can we repair it? Is there room for both of us in the relationship?

And here’s the question that hits differently now:

Am I keeping this person in my life because I genuinely want them there—or because losing them would make me feel unchosen?

Well.

Fuck.

There it is.

Hekate, you could’ve warned me.

Actually, don’t answer that.

We both know she did.

Empty Chairs Aren’t Rejection

Nineteen-year-old me desperately wanted a seat at somebody else’s table.

She didn’t care enough about whose table it was. She just didn’t want to be the one standing outside again.

I understand her now.

But almost-56-year-old me isn’t standing in that doorway anymore.

She owns the damn table.

She can add chairs. She can move chairs. She can let somebody leave without chasing them down the driveway carrying their chair behind them yelling, WAIT, WE HAVE HISTORY!

And—this is new—she can leave a chair empty.

For a long time, empty chairs felt like rejection.

Now?

Sometimes an empty chair is just space.

Breathing room.

Peace.

The absence of somebody who makes you wish you’d eaten alone.

And once I’m not obsessing over filling every seat, something else becomes easier to see.

The people already sitting there.

The ones who make room for me without asking me to shrink first. The ones who don’t always get everything right but keep showing up. The ones I don’t have to perform for. The people whose presence feels less like auditioning and more like exhaling.

Those people matter.

Maybe the magic isn’t always about finding more people to choose me.

Maybe it’s finally seeing clearly enough to choose the people who are already there—back.

Not because of history.

Not because of obligation.

Not because an empty chair is whispering at me like a needy little ghost.

Because I actually want them at my table.

Because I like them.

Because I choose them.

Revolutionary concept, I know.

We started with:

Who will choose me?

And somewhere along the way, I apparently became the one holding the seating chart.

Funny how that happens when you stop begging for a chair and realize you were sitting at the head of the table the whole damn time.

And somehow that spirals into:

Who do I choose?

Yeah.

That’s a hell of a shift.

Don’t Touch the Flashlight

I look at Hekate.

She looks at me.

We both look at the drain.

Nothing.

No gurgling. No bubbling. No suspicious cosmic plumbing noises trying to ruin my day.

I narrow my eyes.

“Nobody touch anything.”

The Universe stays quiet in that way that is never comforting, only suspicious.

Hekate’s hand drifts toward the flashlight anyway.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

She pauses.

I swear she enjoys this part.

“I have been spiritually flushed, emotionally power-washed, psychologically drain-snaked, and we are seven posts deep into whatever this is. My birthday is approaching like a freight train and I have OTHER SHIT TO DO.”

Still nothing.

For one brief, shining moment, I think maybe—just maybe—we’ve reached the end of the weird.

Then:

glug.

Of course.

I don’t even look at her.

“No.”

She already has the flashlight.

“Absolutely not.”

And then it happens—the next question, sliding in like it pays rent here:

What happens when I choose someone… and they don’t choose me back?

Oh.

Yeah. That one doesn’t come with a punchline.

Not immediately, anyway.

Because this is different.

It’s one thing to stop auditioning for every passing role in somebody else’s life.

It’s another thing entirely to choose on purpose—clear-eyed, open-hearted, no games, no performance—make space at your table like you actually mean it…

…and then realize they don’t want the seat.

Oof.

Yeah.

That one lands in the ribs.

Not because I failed.

Not because I wasn’t enough.

But because rejection still hurts even when you did everything “right.”

Especially then.

Turns out self-respect does not come with emotional Novocaine.

Rude, honestly.

Well.

There it is.