Welcome - please tread on me.

Doormats are severely misunderstood objects. When they are new, you are happy to see them. You take great joy in laying it before your front door, where it proudly exclaims 'Welcome!' to anyone who approaches it and pleasantly takes all their abuse. It happily takes on all the mud and snow people wipe on it and is still welcoming to the next person. It becomes intimately familiar with the mail man and the delivery person. It guards the spare key and the occasional flyer that slides underneath unseen. Over time it becomes a little worn and its welcome may seem more of a 'w lco e' but it still serves its purpose. Then one day, you decide that it has had enough and you pick it up and toss it. Or you try to wash it and when this is unsuccessful, you put it under the litter box. When you did pick it up you notice that the concrete beneath it has stained. Or is it the concrete around it that has stained? Either way, you blame the doormat. You would never consider blaming yourself for not giving the mat more tender, loving care. You have taken it for granted all this time and now that it no longer pleases you, you cast it away for a newer model that either says nothing or says something cute like 'A fisherman and his best catch live here' and makes people laugh. Or it is pretty and makes people go "Ooo" and "Ahh" when they see it. They never inquire as to what happened to the old mat. No one cares.

People can be doormats too. If you've never been in a relationship where you felt like a doormat, consider yourself fortunate. I've been there, and it's not an ideal situation. You start off all new and plush and welcoming. Over time, you remain welcoming, but you're not new anymore and you're nap has worn down a little. Your body sags not only under the weight of time but under the weight of all the things you can't get off your chest. You're worn down and less inviting than you used to seem but, being a doormat, you can't just get up and leave. If you could, you might take yourself down the street to the little house with no doormat. They might like you there, even if you are a little worn down. You are either kept at the door till you are so worn down you don't care anymore, or you are tossed out for a plusher, prettier mat. Either situation is not what you would choose for yourself. If you only weren't a doormat. The wearing down doesn't happen all at once, it is the years of scraping of dirty shoes, of comments on how ugly you are, on being beaten by the weather with no one to care, of being buried in dirt and ice and dirty leaves. You never meant it to be like this, but you don't know how to fix the situation. Like the doormat, you can't move. Every once in a while someone might pick you up and shake you out, or rake you to remove the surface debris, but this is only for show - so they won't be embarrassed to have you seen.

If you find yourself in this type of relationship - the type where you are the complacent doormat - you must move. Shake off the debris and in the ultimate defiant act of anthropomorphism, give yourself life and move. Don't be so welcoming. Dust yourself off. Repaint your letters. Comb your nap and get the hell out of that doorway. You might be missed for a while - they may even try to get you back - especially if they see how well you've cleaned up - but don't go. Haul yourself down to that little house down the block and plop yourself down in the doorway of somewhere you know you'll be welcoming - and welcome. Better yet, get your own house to welcome people into. You can pick who you'll welcome and who you'll turn away. Be your own welcome mat.

Of course you can choose to stay and risk being tossed out or replaced. It's hard, if not damn near impossible, for a doormat to walk away. But if you don't, remember what I said yesterday - there is no sympathy for self-inflicted wounds. We won't judge, we just won't give any sympathy.

Good luck and you're welcome here.

Holly