I once gave a boy an olive branch with a few olives, not too many that might signify a budding romance, but just enough to hint at an arm’s-length friendship. But what he did with the olive branch was strictly his business, I told myself as I extended it. He can eat the olives and chew them out; he can trample the branch in one tacky blow; he can leave it out to shrivel up; he can take them in and poison them with some Drano.
And he did. He saw the branch and looked the other way, as if the branch never existed, nor the roots or the trunk.
What did I do? I considered whether I should delete the message, a symbol of taking the branch back and planting it in my garden. This would have been good for my ego and would have taken away any traces of lack of reciprocation. I wondered whether I should give him a few more olives as a show of goodwill, my people pleaser rearing its receding head.
But I decided I didn’t need to take back the olives I extended in cordiality. I had enough olive branches already planted on my side of the fence, and they were growing tall and abundant. I wanted to leave evidence of me trying because I’m someone who tries to make things right, even when I make mistakes by reacting to triggers. Or maybe I needed a cautionary olive branch to keep me in check.
