Parasites, Boundaries, and the Bullshit in My Life

We were talking about parasites.

Real ones.

The body kind.

And somewhere in the conversation, something cracked open.

Let’s call her Velvet Phoenix—because she rises, she burns, and she tells the truth whether you’re ready for it or not.

The kind of woman who can begin with intestinal organisms and somehow escort you directly into an emotional awakening before you’ve finished your beverage.

Because the real parasites aren’t always living inside the body.

Sometimes the behavior is walking around.

Texting you.

Sending you mail after you specifically said not to.

Showing up at the locked door and acting confused that the key no longer works.

Let’s be precise: I am not diagnosing anybody.

I am describing a pattern.

The pattern does not respect boundaries. It thinks “no” is the beginning of a negotiation. It rewrites reality until your own memory starts asking permission to exist.

Then, when you finally close the door, it stands outside asking why you are being so mean.

Quack.

Quack.

Quack.

That’s how you know it’s bullshit.

Apparently it has taken me nearly four decades to understand the difference between announcing a boundary and actually holding one.

Saying it is the easy part.

“I need space.”

“Please don’t contact me.”

“A boundary is the point where I stop abandoning myself to make somebody else more comfortable.”

“This doesn’t work for me.”

Beautiful sentences. Gold stars. Very emotionally intelligent.

Holding the boundary is what happens afterward—when the mail arrives, the phone lights up, guilt puts on a little costume, and shame starts whispering:

You allowed it.

You should have known better.

If you were stronger, this wouldn’t have happened.

No.

That is shame trying to get rehired after being terminated for misconduct.

The truth is that trusting someone is not consent to be harmed. Loving someone is not a lifetime access badge. Having tolerated something before does not mean I am required to tolerate it forever.

A boundary is not revenge.

It is not cruelty.

It is not a punishment wrapped in therapy language.

It is the point where I stop abandoning myself to make somebody else more comfortable.

Meanwhile, at 38,000 feet, the airline has created its own emotional parasite: the preferential bidding system.

Twelve years of feeding preferences into an algorithmic mindfuck.

I tell it what I need.

The system says, “Cute.”

Then it shrinks the available options until it hands me the scraps and calls the result fair.

Here’s what you get.

You’re not senior enough.

Normalized dysfunction with a user interface.

Maybe that’s why boundaries feel so foreign. So many systems train us to accept whatever remains after everybody else has taken what they want. They call it procedure. Seniority. Policy. Love. Family. A complicated situation.

Same bullshit. Different letterhead.

And then there was the actual letter.

From him.

The person who crossed the boundary after I clearly warned him not to.

I held the card and asked myself why I would open it.

Because apparently even an envelope can arrive dressed as an obligation.

But not every knock requires an answer.

Not every letter deserves an opening.

Not every person who reaches for me is entitled to find me still standing where they left me.

The solution to pollution is dilution.

You step in shit?

You wash it off.

You do not build a guest room for it. You do not ask whether the shit had a difficult childhood. You do not carry it through the airport because it says it packed too much.

You wash it off.

Life keeps happening anyway.

The bidding system keeps bidding.

The mail keeps arriving.

The body keeps trying to heal.

And boundaries keep feeling uncomfortable right up until the moment they begin to feel like freedom.

Lucy?

She isn’t missing.

She changed the gate, blocked the forwarding address, and left a lipstick mark where the apology was supposed to be.