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This is Fruitycake. You never know what you’re going to wake up to here each morning. Leaving the windows open at night so that we can breathe is also a big invitation allowing company to come inside.

You could wake up to a lizard sleeping in your bed.

You could wake up to a bat in your covers.

You could wake up to wasps building a nest, a ghiro building a nest or the realization that you are the one living in the cuckoo’s nest.

Or you could wake up to a parade of ants celebrating the official month-long holiday of August in this Italy place. In your kitchen. Carrying away all your treats and sweets and meats.

Yeah, I wasn’t going to stand for that. But if you leave crumbs, they will come.

Girl Person gets up as soon as the crows start yelling at everyone. They are the official alarm clocks around here, except they don’t have a snooze button and they don’t care if you were up all night worrying about your dog having little seizures.

She walked into the kitchen to make coffee and saw something moving across the floor. At first, she thought her eyes were still asleep. Then she bent down and realized that a cracker was traveling across the room.

Crackers do not usually have legs. I know because I have studied them closely.

But underneath this cracker was an entire army of ants. They had surrounded it, lifted it and were carrying it away together. That cracker was much bigger than any one of them, but each ant had taken hold of one small part. They knew where they were going, and apparently, they had already made lunch reservations.

I admired their teamwork. I did not admire their menu selection.

Girl Person followed the cracker parade and started cleaning. Every crumb she found led to another ant. Every tiny piece we had overlooked had become an invitation. One crumb did not look like much to us, but to an ant, it was enough reason to come inside, bring the entire family and make future plans.

And I started thinking.

Yes, I do that sometimes.

People can be like crackers. You begin whole, with your own ideas, needs, dreams and direction. Then you start breaking off little pieces of yourself for everyone else.

You give someone your time even though you have none left.

You give someone your energy even though you are already exhausted.

You give someone the power to decide whether you are good enough.

You make yourself quieter so that someone else can feel louder. You make your dreams smaller so that someone else will not feel uncomfortable. You change your opinions, your plans and even the way you see yourself because you are afraid that being whole might be too much for someone.

At first, it seems like you are only leaving a few crumbs behind. You tell yourself that it is no big deal. You can always make more time. You can always find more energy. You can always put yourself back together later.

But crumbs attract attention.

When you teach people that they can take small pieces of you without asking, some of them will keep coming back. They may bring friends. They may carry away more than you ever intended to give. And one morning, you may wake up and wonder how so much of you ended up in someone else’s hands.

There is a difference between giving from love and giving yourself away.

Love should not require you to become smaller. Helping someone should not mean abandoning yourself. Being kind does not mean allowing other people to carry away your confidence, peace or identity one little piece at a time.

You are allowed to close the window.

You are allowed to clean up the crumbs.

You are allowed to say, “That part of me is not yours to take.”

Sometimes, we give other people too much power because we want them to approve of us. We let their words determine our worth. If they praise us, we feel whole. If they criticize us, we crumble. But when another person holds that much power over how you see yourself, you have handed them the entire cracker.

And ants are very organized.

Girl Person swept up the crumbs, cleaned the floor and carefully took the traveling cracker away from the parade. I supervised. By supervised, I mean that I stared at the cracker in case it needed a safe place to go.

It did.

The ants were not bad. They were simply taking what had been left available to them. Sometimes, people do the same thing. That is why boundaries matter. They are not punishment. They are the windows and doors that protect what is precious inside you.

You can still be generous. You can still help. You can still love people with your whole heart. But you do not have to dilute yourself until no one can remember who you were—including you.

Keep enough of yourself for yourself.

Keep your voice.

Keep your dreams.

Keep the people who remind you that you do not have to break into pieces to be loved.

And if you discover that you have already left too many crumbs behind, do not be ashamed. Start gathering them. One boundary at a time. One honest word at a time. One decision made for your own well-being at a time.

You are not someone else’s feast.

You are a whole person.

And if you happen to be a whole cracker, please report to my bowl immediately.

Love,

Fruitycake

P.S. Girl Person and Boy Person are trying very hard to keep me safe and arrange the veterinary care I need for these little seizure-like episodes. If you can help with my upcoming vet expenses, groceries and the continuing work of 2 Traveling Dogs, we need and deeply appreciate your support right now.

You can help through Zelle at rachael@2travelingdogs.com, Venmo at travelingdogs2, or our necessities page at www.tinyurl.com/2tdnecessities.

You can also become an important part of the next chapter of our rescue mission by joining our Patreon family for only $5 per month at www.patreon.com/2travelingdogsrescue. Your monthly support helps us continue the blog, audio blog, rescue outreach and our mission to make rescues the breed of choice.