a hippy chick

I’m the first to admit that I’m a rather dramatic person. I know y’all are shocked. I learned this at my daddy’s knee. Make the story just a little better. Make your laugh just a little louder. Make your hug just a little tighter. Mmm I’m remembering my dad’s hugs. He would’ve been 85 this year. An old coot at 51 when I was born, he still entered into the world of childhood with zest. In fact, if not for my dad, I shudder to think of the safe, contained, repressed little world I would’ve been brought up in. He was larger than life, told pretty good fish stories, the life of the party anywhere he went, and the first dramatic person in my life.

There are people who are dramatic in a sad, pessimistic, never-happy way that makes you wanna slap ‘em. Did I just say that? And there are people who are dramatic in a loud, rather obnoxious way that makes you laugh, but eventually you find yourself wishing they would shuddup already. Guess which camp I fall in? I’m just wondering if you can guess, is all.

Anyway, my boss is dramatic-in-a-loud-and-mostly-angry way. Usually this is easy to take as she makes me laugh. She comes across as rather abrasive, but she’s good at her job and people just know “not to cross her”. She has one unfortunate habit; she feels entitled to comment on every area of my life. See, we are also friends outside of work, although not as close as I first thought we were going to be. First, she ridicules my God and doesn’t mind telling me how stupid it is to believe in Him. That would be enough…but the parenting is the other big thing. She’s made no secret that they had cereal in their bottles, sleeping across the house from her at 6 wks old, calls me crazy for cosleeping, etc. But the fact that she slaps them in the face when they get out of line is just not something I can overlook. And I only know that because she takes some pride in telling me this, as if I need to learn what the real world is all about.

I’ve just gradually withdrawn more and more from her because I don’t want any more negative influences in my life. So yesterday when she asked me how I was doing, and probed in depth, I was a little surprised and also (let’s face it) pleased to whine about myself. So I told her the avenues I’d been exploring, really kind of putting it all out there, and she said I was a dreamer without a practical bone in my body and I needed to get my head on straight and a few other things that weren’t meant to be kind advice. She said it loud, and confrontationally, standing over my desk. Which bothered me most, because it was as if she felt her position as my boss gave her leeway to say anything and everything she wanted to say to me. Now mind you, I did not go looking for advice. This was a person I thought I could “talk” to. There are lots of different plans and ideas swirling inside my head. I am a dreamer, and proud of it. But right now I’m being the most practical me that I can be, and that’s the honest truth. Instead of quitting a job that means nothing but a paycheck, I’m staying with it, trying to get my website developed and trying to find a niche in the market to support myself while remaining employed. I don’t see what’s impractical about that.

I seem to invite these people-my coworker at my last place of employment was the same. Get close, and then bam! the boom is lowered. “You’re not like me and you need to be” is the message I get, loud and clear. Well you know what? A lifetime of people pleasing, and failing to please them, and realizing that I will never ever approaching pleasing them, has made me more resilient than I used to be. So to all those people who want to put me in a box-I am ME. And I’m trying to be the best ME I can be. Wouldn’t life be sad and boring if we were all the same? Stop trying to make me into something I’m NOT.

The End! How’s that for dramatic?