For years I waited for someone or something to save me. To rescue me. To come and get me out of the situations I was in. Sometimes it was the hope of a new job or a new place to live. Sometimes it was a change in someone else (they’d be kinder, they’d learn something new, they’d do their own healing). Sometimes it was just waiting. 

And it makes sense. I grew up in a religious tradition that taught me I was powerless. I was incapable of doing anything good or right. I was irredeemable. Only God could save me. And only God could change my situation. So I sat and waited. 

I sat and waited in friendships with people who wouldn’t support me. I sat and waited in relationships where I was mistreated. I sat and waited without boundaries. I sat and waited in underpaying jobs where I was taken advantage of. I sat and waited while other people took my ideas and ran with them. I sat and waited. 

Guess what? Nothing got better. Not really. And even when things DID get better it seemed it happened by accident. Or because someone else made a decision. 

Slowly, slowly I realized that no one was coming to save me. No one was going to pick me. No one was going to hand me my dreams on a platter. (I also came to realize that all of those stories I’d been told about God weren’t true, either. I was never meant to be helpless, I was always invited to be a co-creator and a co-participant with God. But that’s a whole other essay.)

Slowly I started to put myself out there. I started to make decisions. I started to leave situations that weren’t good for me. I started to get clear on what I wanted and set boundaries. I started to believe that I wasn’t helpless, that I was capable. 

Nothing changed overnight. There are still situations where I feel like I don’t have a lot of power (sometimes I don’t, sometimes it’s old messaging coming up again, sometimes it’s a combination of the two!) but even in those situations I try to think about what I DO have power over. 

Being in creative industries helps, sometimes. You understand the immense odds. For every competition there are hundreds (if not thousands) of people entering their scripts. For every theatre in the country there are 2-6 spots a year for a play and maybe one of those will go to a new play. There are lots and lots of writers. No one is going to discover you or read your work unless you put yourself out there. So I’ve had to get used to putting myself out there. Submitting to things. Hearing a LOT of no’s. Taking notes. Getting better. Submitting again. 

What it’s taught me is a NO won’t be the end of me. But waiting around will. 

If no one is coming to give me the life I want, then I better get started building it myself. 

It can be easy sometimes to believe that someone or something will come to save us. Many of us have been taught to trust in our institutions and even as they’ve often failed us we sometimes hope that this time they’ll come through: this time the church WILL do the right thing. This time the politicians or political parties will protect the most vulnerable. So we wait. 

But what if we stopped waiting? What if we started to act as if we were all we have? What if we started to look after our neighbors, stand up for trans folks, open the doors of our houses and churches and other places to offer shelter to people in need? What if we provided medical care for each other and fed each other? What if we made our communities so resilient that they could survive almost anything? 

What if we saved ourselves?