Others don’t get to define you unless you let them.

From Alfred’s journal

The jays were at me again this morning, three of them, the way they do when they have decided a bird is a trespasser. I spent most of my younger years believing that if enough voices called me a nuisance I had better check whether I was one. Switch watched the whole business from the fence post, eating something, entirely unbothered, and when they turned on him he just kept chewing. Others don't get to define you unless you let them, I wrote, and then sat there a while because I am not sure I know where the letting happens. It feels less like a decision and more like a door I forgot was there. The jays left around noon and the branch was the same branch.