Piss Off, Sweetheart

So, I wrote about how Sunday was awesome and I was feeling so much better.  But then Monday happened and I thought I was dying again.  Oy.  I’ve been sick with a cold and fever all week and just feeling crappy.  Luckily, I think the worst is really behind me this time and today has been pretty good.  Let’s hope it’s really gone this time!

In other news, guess what I did last week…  I stood up for myself.

That’s right.  Someone was crappy to me and I actually did something about it.  I volunteered to do this thing and someone made that thing extra difficult for me.  When I asked if they could relieve some of the difficult-ness, they were rude and treated me like I was the one making things difficult.  So you know what I did?  I quit volunteering for the event.  One two sentence email, and BOOM.  Done.

I felt pretty good about it all last week, but this week it’s been kind of creeping into my mind.  Thoughts like, “It’s better to serve than to be served,” and “Take the high road,” and other things that you find on t-shirts and pillows these days.

“Don’t make this about you.”

“Suck it up, buttercup.”

“Serve with a happy heart.”

And even my own personal mantra, “Bloom where you are planted.”

All these thoughts have come and gone this week as I have rethought my actions last week.  Maybe I should have been more patient.  More conducive.  More understanding.  I’ve been the coordinator before, so maybe I should have been more sensitive to what this person was going through as they planned and prepared for an event.

But then I stop and think, “No.  No, that’s not right.”  Because I HAVE been in that position before, I KNOW that you can still treat people kindly, respectfully, and appreciatively when you’re under stress.  I LIVE under stress.  I have an app that was supposed to launch two weeks ago, students who are two steps away from literally RIOTING in my classroom because they are so excited about summer, two kids of my own who have active, busy lives, a blog, a Cub Scout den, a PTA board, and all the other crap that moms have to deal with on any given day.  And just because I have those stressors in my life, doesn’t mean I walk around yelling and degrading and demanding things from people.  That’s not an excuse for that behavior, and so I’m not going to excuse that behavior from someone else.

And that doesn’t make me a bad person, a bad Christian, a bad volunteer, or a bad example for my kids.  In fact, I would actually say the opposite.  I think I might have set a good example of how to respect yourself.  And sometimes respecting yourself means very politely telling someone to piss off.

Well, actually, that’s not completely correct.  In the South we say, “Piss off, sweetheart.”

It’s more polite.

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Pictures are from this weekend and have nothing to do with this post.  They just make me happy after a very long week.  🙂