No..You Can't Have Your Markers Back..

In light of some recent events with a friend, -I use the term friend loosely, I’m feeling melancholy and want to share something I call the “White Board Effect”.

When I am introduced to someone new, I (emotionally & figuratively speaking) give everyone a whiteboard and an assortment of colored markers to go with it. As time moves on and we have further interactions, those interactions are drawn on your whiteboard. In a sense, I am allowing you to draw little pictures depicting who you are. For example, if you are fun to be around and you make me laugh, your pictures will illustrate something pleasant and enjoyable to my senses.

Naturally, if you are one who draws pictures endlessly -that are pleasant, I will continue to be drawn to you. Some have even been given larger or multiple drawing surfaces and entrusted with their own eraser. Ensuring them the ability to correct mistakes or start over if needed.

Some have chosen to simply carry their whiteboard around, waiting for that opportunity to draw on it. While others have chosen to abandon their whiteboard all together. It's the people that draw dark images or tend to scribble, that seem to have a problem with their "standard issue" whiteboard. It is this group of people that I either refuse to look at their whiteboard, or do so sparingly. In some cases, I have chosen to erase the images drawn and force the return of said whiteboard.

This is where some that know me a little more intimately would probably like to inject "Yeah..she holds grudges" or "No kidding, don't cross her, she will write you off.."

So go ahead, enter your thoughts HERE --> (If that is not enough space for you, leave it in the comments)

The short of it all -you draw pretty pictures, you get to keep your whiteboard. You scribble and make a mess, I take your whiteboard away. So I guess in a sense, I do write you off, or least erase you. I can see how one would think me to be judgemental or to be holding grudges. But in reality, it’s my way of coping. I'm not turning my back on you, I'm simply choosing to not let you affect me. By removing your whiteboard from the wall, I am no longer subject to it. Why fill myself with the unpleasant when there is good to be looked at?

It is possible, albeit rare, to have your whiteboard returned to you after having had it erased and taken away. But doing so is done with great reservations, especially if your drawings went from pleasant to dark without any warning. When someone reaches this point in my emotional world, where they are stripped of their whiteboard –they can feel it. They don’t always know exactly what I have done. But the temperature change is significant and often hard to miss. They are left knowing that I am still there, still being polite and cordial, but the protective cover has been put back over my true self, thus extinguishing the light, leaving them on the outside in the dark. It is here that I will explain to you exactly what has happened -If the temperature around you and I changes suddenly from warm and inviting to cool or uncomfortable, your whiteboard has been taken away. And for the record - No, You can’t have your markers (or your whiteboard) back.