The bitch is back......sort of.

Many years ago, in what is commonly referred to as my "former life", I was somewhat of a bitch.
I said what I wanted and did what I wanted, without regard to how it affected the people around me.
I left an ocean of bruised feelings in my wake.
At some point, maybe after having several children, or maybe when I stopped drinking heavily, I decided to stop being a jerk. More accurately, I decided that I was the biggest jerk on the planet and that for the rest of my life I should take the blame for things that I didn't do, and allow myself to be an easily manipulated doormat.
It's really become a huge problem. I have even let people who were supposed to be my friends treat me like garbage while simultaneously chastising me for having hurt feelings.
I am not a stupid person. I am not a naive person. I'm a pretty great person, really.
I'm just a people-pleaser. And when people-pleasers finally have enough, they REALLY have enough.
I'm not writing this as a pre-emptive apology. And this isn't my excuse to go back to being a jerkface. Don't get me wrong. I'm still going to be the nice girl. I'm just done being more concerned with your feelings than mine.
To take from a (completely unrelated but amazing) piece my friend wrote recently:

I matter.