Loyal

I am a person who has spent my life not understanding loyalty. I thought I did. I thought I was the most loyal person around. I was loyal to my friends, my family, and anything and anyone I associated with.

I believed loyalty was sticking with someone or something no matter what. For friends, this left space for people whose behaviors others would not put up with. But I would stay. For family, this is even more true. As a child, you are stuck with what you have as a family. Then in your teens and early adulthood, you can separate, rebel, move on. But I missed the memo on that. I skipped this part. I learned in my childhood how to manage my abusive mother and I think I was too afraid to rock that boat. Better to keep managing than to risk riling her up.

Well, I was wrong. My definition of loyalty included an allegiance with another person but left out something even more important, allegiance with myself, with my own values. We know this from our public life. I will be loyal to a political party or candidate, company, or organization unless they do something that doesn’t align with my values. I have even brought this thinking to friendships, leaving them behind when it was clear our values diverged. But can you apply this thinking family? Yes, even family. My family has been propped up all these years by a warped system of loyalty. When I challenged that system it disrupted the apple cart. I mean truly. Apples everywhere. I had to walk away. That system did not align with my values. I still love them. But no, I am not loyal.

Yesterday a friend told me the only person you can ever be completely loyal to is yourself. I let this sink in for a moment. Loyalty to self is the showing of constant support to myself and to my values. Do I even do that? I don’t think that, at my core, I have ever really fostered this kind of thinking. Under my old definition of loyalty that would seem lonely and selfish. But under this new light, it looks empowering.