Man, I woke up in easily as bad of a mood as I went to bed in, and it was made subsequently worse when I wanted to leave for work but couldn't because I hadn't brushed my teeth yet and Linda was in the bathroom. She finally vacated the bathroom 7:05 (I try to leave at 7), and I went in there to find out that she'd just taken a shit and it stunk in there!! How inconsiderate! So, with that on top of finding the drain hair on my conditioner bottle last night means I have to confront her. I can't live like this. I just worry about how she will react. I can reasonably assume that she won't react like my older sister would, but I have already had enough interaction with her to know that she will try to make me feel stupid, and stupid I will feel. I'm already all worked up, and the only way I will be able to keep myself from turning bright red in the face and neck is if I get angry and show her that I am angry, but that doesn't seem like a good option.
I hate confrontation. I get so nervous and even if I have everything worked out for what I want to say, my brain moves faster than my mouth and I end up sounding like a retard. What I really want to do is be just as petty and immature back, but that won't solve anything and it will probably just make me feel worse about myself. I'm definitely not going to do anything tonight.
And then there's the shit with Jen. Everything started when she posted a comment on my facebook wall about my new hair color, and I took it offensively, based on how it was phrased. I even asked Former Bestie what she thought when she read the comment and she took it in the same context I did, which was that Jen didn't like the way I looked with blond hair. So I told Jen that I was offended by the comment, and she removed it, but not before getting pissy with me about how I shouldn't have been offended because she didn't mean it that way. The problem is that nearly everything that comes out of her mouth has some tone of judgment or conceit to it, and so that's how I took it. The other thing is that Jen didn't think about how she was phrasing it before she wrote it there for the whole world to see, and I'm frustrated by that.
I had invited Former Bestie and Fiance out to run in the Colfax Marathon Relay with us, but after arguing with Jen, I had made a point of not speaking to her, and I asked Former Bestie to tell Jen that I had invited her out. Two days later I get a scathing email that started out telling me that she is leaving me high and dry and "running with another team" - which means that she and Rachel and I am guessing some guy she works with are putting together a team of their own which won't include me. Then she goes on to tell me that I am in fact the one that is the more negative person of the two of us and my negativity is what makes her a negative person (I should mention that in our argument before about her comment about my hair, I told her I was tired of her being so negative all the time and dragging me down). It is here that I would like to point out to her - someone who I have repeatedly tried to see things from a different perspective instead of her own one-sided and judgmental perspective - that she apparently does not understand what people mean when they say that she's "negative." Negative doesn't mean being in a bad mood all the time. Negative means bitching and complaining about every single diminutive wrong that one sees as a personal attack. It means bitching because the referee called the game on account of the other team's behavior and then losing said game, or it means bitching because you don't get enough hours at work, or because you've sent 200 resumes out and not heard back from a single company, or because you hate your job. It means never looking at things optimistically or hopefully. And there's a big difference between being negative and being realistic. You can be realistic and still be optimistic or hopeful. Being negative means assuming the worst, or expecting the worst or refusing to change because you're too scared that you won't know how to deal with something new.
I told Jen that when I say I want to go out and do something, and then decide not to go, it's almost always because of money. She gets very upset if I say I'm going to do something and then bail. When I say I want to do something, I genuinely want to do it, and it's often later that I decide not to because I can't afford it. And I can't afford it because I am now paying for rent, utilities, and food for me and my dog. I made a point of saying that I don't agree with her money management skills because she bitches and complains that she hates her job and can't find a "real" job (to her, "real" means 40 hours a week at $15 an hour or more), and that's why she can't move out of her parents house. The money she does make working her shitty retail job goes to paying down her credit cards (with which she paid for her entire college education regardless of the fact that the interest rates are twice if not more than twice what a student loan's interest rates would be), and clothes. She spends her money on $200 shoes and the like without batting an eye, and to me, $200 is two trips to the vet for Phoenix. If she'd simply save her money, and make the minimum payments on her (multiple) credit cards, she could afford to move out, even on her shitty retail job salary.
If I could map our the source of Jen's negativity, it would go something like this:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Now I will take responsibility for my capability of being a huge bitch, as well as responsibility for my own upsets and moods. I am well aware of when and why I am in a bad mood and I write about them every single day. I will take responsibility for caring too much about my friend's current life situation in which she seems perfectly content to live in whilst continuing to complain about the aspects of it that she hates yet refuses to change.
However, I am optimistic that my life's circumstances will change. I am hopeful that I will eventually get a handle on my mental health so that I don't go through day after day after day of misery. I moved out of my parents house because I could not stand living there any longer with my older sister, and I may not be able to go out to dinners and events every single weekend (much less twice in a weekend), but I am satisfied with my place in the world right now. I come and go as I please, I decide what I am eating for dinner every night, I am responsible for doing my own dishes and no one else's and most importantly, I do my own laundry. In my opinion, someone who is 26, and has never moved out of their parents' house is terrified of actually having to take responsibility for their own happiness, and will continue to place blame on anyone and anything that will allow them to retain what sense of dignity they still have.
Bottom line: I am pissed. She has blamed me for her own (genetic) propensity to be a negative Nancy, when we rarely speak and even more rarely see one another. I am not going to take this shit lying down. I am responsible for my own happiness, and while I would not classify myself as "happy" on any given day, I know that I am working hard each and every single day towards what will give me satisfaction in this life. Which is much more than I can say for her.
I spent some time talking with Former Bestie this morning, and explaining how the stress of these two players in my life was upsetting me so much, and she responded, "Don't let this stuff get to you, you're better than that." And she's right! I spoke to Kara last night and I told her I didn't understand why I'm so upset by such petty, meaningless stuff when there's real catastrophe going on in the world and people's lives are in danger! So after this post, I am going to put my confrontation with Linda on the back-burner of my brain and just enjoy the rest of this sunny day. I'm going to make myself a delicious veggie stir-fry for dinner and watch the most recent episode of Shameless (J. Chat has a new facebook profile and I'm still his friend!) and use the Buddhist mantra, "Let it go...."
I hate confrontation. I get so nervous and even if I have everything worked out for what I want to say, my brain moves faster than my mouth and I end up sounding like a retard. What I really want to do is be just as petty and immature back, but that won't solve anything and it will probably just make me feel worse about myself. I'm definitely not going to do anything tonight.
And then there's the shit with Jen. Everything started when she posted a comment on my facebook wall about my new hair color, and I took it offensively, based on how it was phrased. I even asked Former Bestie what she thought when she read the comment and she took it in the same context I did, which was that Jen didn't like the way I looked with blond hair. So I told Jen that I was offended by the comment, and she removed it, but not before getting pissy with me about how I shouldn't have been offended because she didn't mean it that way. The problem is that nearly everything that comes out of her mouth has some tone of judgment or conceit to it, and so that's how I took it. The other thing is that Jen didn't think about how she was phrasing it before she wrote it there for the whole world to see, and I'm frustrated by that.
I had invited Former Bestie and Fiance out to run in the Colfax Marathon Relay with us, but after arguing with Jen, I had made a point of not speaking to her, and I asked Former Bestie to tell Jen that I had invited her out. Two days later I get a scathing email that started out telling me that she is leaving me high and dry and "running with another team" - which means that she and Rachel and I am guessing some guy she works with are putting together a team of their own which won't include me. Then she goes on to tell me that I am in fact the one that is the more negative person of the two of us and my negativity is what makes her a negative person (I should mention that in our argument before about her comment about my hair, I told her I was tired of her being so negative all the time and dragging me down). It is here that I would like to point out to her - someone who I have repeatedly tried to see things from a different perspective instead of her own one-sided and judgmental perspective - that she apparently does not understand what people mean when they say that she's "negative." Negative doesn't mean being in a bad mood all the time. Negative means bitching and complaining about every single diminutive wrong that one sees as a personal attack. It means bitching because the referee called the game on account of the other team's behavior and then losing said game, or it means bitching because you don't get enough hours at work, or because you've sent 200 resumes out and not heard back from a single company, or because you hate your job. It means never looking at things optimistically or hopefully. And there's a big difference between being negative and being realistic. You can be realistic and still be optimistic or hopeful. Being negative means assuming the worst, or expecting the worst or refusing to change because you're too scared that you won't know how to deal with something new.
I told Jen that when I say I want to go out and do something, and then decide not to go, it's almost always because of money. She gets very upset if I say I'm going to do something and then bail. When I say I want to do something, I genuinely want to do it, and it's often later that I decide not to because I can't afford it. And I can't afford it because I am now paying for rent, utilities, and food for me and my dog. I made a point of saying that I don't agree with her money management skills because she bitches and complains that she hates her job and can't find a "real" job (to her, "real" means 40 hours a week at $15 an hour or more), and that's why she can't move out of her parents house. The money she does make working her shitty retail job goes to paying down her credit cards (with which she paid for her entire college education regardless of the fact that the interest rates are twice if not more than twice what a student loan's interest rates would be), and clothes. She spends her money on $200 shoes and the like without batting an eye, and to me, $200 is two trips to the vet for Phoenix. If she'd simply save her money, and make the minimum payments on her (multiple) credit cards, she could afford to move out, even on her shitty retail job salary.
If I could map our the source of Jen's negativity, it would go something like this:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Now I will take responsibility for my capability of being a huge bitch, as well as responsibility for my own upsets and moods. I am well aware of when and why I am in a bad mood and I write about them every single day. I will take responsibility for caring too much about my friend's current life situation in which she seems perfectly content to live in whilst continuing to complain about the aspects of it that she hates yet refuses to change.
However, I am optimistic that my life's circumstances will change. I am hopeful that I will eventually get a handle on my mental health so that I don't go through day after day after day of misery. I moved out of my parents house because I could not stand living there any longer with my older sister, and I may not be able to go out to dinners and events every single weekend (much less twice in a weekend), but I am satisfied with my place in the world right now. I come and go as I please, I decide what I am eating for dinner every night, I am responsible for doing my own dishes and no one else's and most importantly, I do my own laundry. In my opinion, someone who is 26, and has never moved out of their parents' house is terrified of actually having to take responsibility for their own happiness, and will continue to place blame on anyone and anything that will allow them to retain what sense of dignity they still have.
Bottom line: I am pissed. She has blamed me for her own (genetic) propensity to be a negative Nancy, when we rarely speak and even more rarely see one another. I am not going to take this shit lying down. I am responsible for my own happiness, and while I would not classify myself as "happy" on any given day, I know that I am working hard each and every single day towards what will give me satisfaction in this life. Which is much more than I can say for her.
I spent some time talking with Former Bestie this morning, and explaining how the stress of these two players in my life was upsetting me so much, and she responded, "Don't let this stuff get to you, you're better than that." And she's right! I spoke to Kara last night and I told her I didn't understand why I'm so upset by such petty, meaningless stuff when there's real catastrophe going on in the world and people's lives are in danger! So after this post, I am going to put my confrontation with Linda on the back-burner of my brain and just enjoy the rest of this sunny day. I'm going to make myself a delicious veggie stir-fry for dinner and watch the most recent episode of Shameless (J. Chat has a new facebook profile and I'm still his friend!) and use the Buddhist mantra, "Let it go...."
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