Admittedly there was a time when I would happily jump into any fray that presented itself, whether it concerned me or not. All to often I would enjoy sparring and doing my best to make other people miserable or at the very least feel stupid. Not sure if it was me being unhappy with myself and reflecting that back on others or what. In general though, I was a sad human specimen.
These days I find that I have little patience for what I refer to as “shenanigans.” Anytime someone wants to drag out the drama llama and parade it around, I find myself immediately interested in everything but the drama. Let’s be honest, life is crazy enough as it is. I don’t know about you but for me, most days I’m just trying to remember to wear clean underwear and how to boil water for dinner. Taking on a bunch of fluff that will do nothing but sap my will to live is the last thing I really have the desire to do.
I’ve grown tired of having to worry about what I say that may or may not be taken the wrong way by someone and will therefore likely offend them and cause the drama to start. So as you can imagine, I say quite a few things that cause quite a few people to roll out the red carpet for all their insecurities. And all I can do is laugh and watch with amusement as they go through the motions of making it about themselves when whatever it is I’ve said or done had nothing to do with them.
It would seem that the month of January has brought forth loads of drama, some related to me, some in which I am just a bystander. I don’t know if it’s something in the water, in the air, in the circuitry. But folks are losing their goddamned minds and I’ve had to be extremely blunt about my inability to stop and get involved. It’s not that I don’t care about people. I genuinely do care about the ones I call my friends and family. But I have so many irons in the fire right now and the last thing I really have time for are people pulling shenanigans that I then have to take a lot of time to try and sort out to determine if it’s something I really need to get involved in, if it’s something I even need to apologize for, and all of the subsequent butt-rubbing that goes along with it. The amount of time I have had to spend in the past reassuring people that everything is groovy is staggering. I shouldn’t have to do it over and over and over. If you don’t know that everything’s groovy, me telling you for the umpteenth time isn’t going to fix it. You need to fix yourself first. And thus I walk away and people simply cannot believe that I won’t get involved in shenanigans. And then they think this shows how little I actually care, when in reality all it shows is that I don’t have time for drama. I only have so many spare minutes in my day right now and I have to make my priorities. Fact of the matter is that I choose myself. I am my priority and I have to stick to that. If you cannot have the adult conversation with me about your beef, or if you are going to flail as a collective group and hope to drag me in instead of asking for my impartial input, I have a head-check for you. This isn’t junior high and I’m not your schoolyard bully, nor your chum ready to throw punches for no reason. I am a Grown Woman With Shit to Do.
As so it is that I sit here behind my computer, shrugging at stuff and moving on. People will either learn to trust me and therefore my intentions, or they will continue to be disappointed and have to make the hard choice of whether or not to walk away. In the meantime, I have a job, I have a commute, I have grad school, I have fitness training, and I have dozens of little obligations to fit in the gaps between. I’ll still be here and I’ll still be the same opinionated jerk I’ve always been. Love me or leave me. That’s all I can offer.