Boundaries

"At some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don't keep other people out, they fence you in. Life is messy, that's how we're made. So you can waste your life drawing lines or you can live your life crossing them. If you're willing to throw caution to the wind and take a chance, the view from the other side... is spectacular."
-Grey's Anatomy

Lately I've become taken with the show Grey's Anatomy. Partly it's equating the sense of urgency and madness and stress that the interns feel at the hospital with life as a graduate student (though the people I'm looking at are long dead); loving and loathing and unconditionally supporting your cohort of friends; feeling the need to prove yourself professionally when it feels like your personal life is a mess; or maybe it's the Dr. McDreamy that everyone has in their lives, someone whom you love and who loves you back but for whatever reasons, you can't be with.

But I digress.

Over the weekend I had a disagreement with a romantic partner that was intense and emotional and confusing and draining. It became clear that while he is a good, good person, we see our relationship differently and can't provide what the other person wants. After laying all my emotions on the table, which I have a tendency to do (and only recently have been able to see as courageous - thank you Peg :), I had nothing left. I was exhausted, drained, and numb. I put up what I thought was a healthy boundary (ie, I don't want this anymore, this isn't working out, I want you to leave right now so that I can start healing) and was labeled as being 'spiteful'.

When do boundaries become about protecting yourself at the expense of others? In yoga we talk about meeting our 'edge', the point at which you feel uncomfortable, and staying at your edge and being ok with the discomfort. It's only by confronting our edges that we are able to grow. Is putting up boundaries an act of self-preservation where you deny yourself the opportunity to step up to your edge and look it in the eye? How much consideration should you make of others when you are erecting boundaries you feel you need to protect yourself? What would Mother Theresa do?

Oh, that's right...she didn't get involved with men.