Live; Don't Just Exist

A long, long time ago, in a growing city in the midwest, a little girl was told by her middle school counselor that she "didn't relate well to her peers because she was too smart & if she wanted friends, she needed to dumb herself down".  13 yr old girls really want to fit in and have friends.  And with that guidance counselor telling that young lady weekly (something the little girl never shared with her mom....the fact the woman continued to call her in every Monday to tell her that her vocabulary alienated the rest of the kids)  The little girl believed the woman & her very flawed psychological advice and for the 4 years, she pretended to be mediocre & a silly, stupid girl.  Side note:  today, the behavior of some of the kids she went to school with would be categorized as bullying.

The advice obviously didn't work and the summer between her sophomore and junior year, she went away for the summer and met total strangers while she swam in Lake Table Rock, painted, & spent hours sunbathing in a lounger on a wrap around deck with hundreds of hummingbirds buzzing around and chipmunks scurrying around.  It was during this summer, the summer of solitude, only having an aging aunt & the kids who pulled up to the boat deck in their boats and invited her to ski, swim, & hang out.  She got bit by an alligator garr (still has the scar) and her dreams of becoming a marine biologist began to fade.  She wrote her first book while laying on the dock.  It's still unpublished but that could change!! When she went back to school in the fall, she was a different girl.

She quit just existing and quit caring what other people thought.  It was this new girl who had the guts to approach her now husband (Nah, I'm telling you the details).  This girl, who didn't care, began truly living.  It's also when she developed her bluntness.  Some people say it's rude; she believes it's merely to the point.

It was not until the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" came out that she really understood the battle she'd been fighting for years with people.  Miranda Priestly was dogged for treating business like a man would.  It was this uncompromising demand for her business and her personal life to be in HER control that made some people call her names and dislike her.  But, she was not just existing, she was living her life.

I know you have figured out this girl is me.  I've been called some pretty awful things by people who CHOSE to enter myself and then didn't like that I MADE the rules for my life.  Yes, I have told people, if you don't like it, there is the gate, latch it on your way out, don't let it hit you in the ass, & don't ever come back through it.

I've told someone I love to leave me the hell alone and only after nearly 3 yrs of space, was I ready to deal with them.  For almost 26 years, I have been kind but very firm; blunt and stand my ground.  I was "Living"

Yet, when the university let me know 2 days before my contract ended (though I had a new one for the next year signed), I made the decision to close our ranch, and I was informed that I was some kind of devil worshiping abusive monster.....I went into a merely existing mindset

In September, about 6 weeks after being unemployed and after going on nearly 45 interviews, I was offered a job.  I was thrilled and excited.  I felt a little bit of my "life" coming back.  I knew it would be a new life but I was good with the changes.  Until the director of the company called me in during training to tell me that I was "intimidating" the trainers because I "was smarter and I needed to dumb myself down to get through the training."

I was for a moment back in that guidance counselor's office.  But, unlike that unhappy girl, her words found the "living" part of me and the blunt, bold woman I'd been for the last 2 decades of my life came screaming back to the surface.  I explained the facts of life to the director and though we were seriously hurting for money, I walked away from that job.  I don't compromise on my life.  It's not in my nature.

As it turns out, walking instead of cowering, LIVING instead of existing has set me free.
Like I said yesterday, I'm happier now than I have been in over 2 yrs.  I didn't realize I was unhappy until real happiness hit a few short weeks ago.

I'm exhausted when I get home from work.  I hardly have time to do much when I'm working my 40 hour weeks.  For the weeks when I'm at work for 12 hrs or 15 hrs, it's almost impossible to do anything but work.  However, I find peace in writing when I do have time and I love the time I have with my family.  While certain freedoms have been lost, the things I am gaining far outweigh those.

I also have a job in which my intelligence is utilized. 
I'll always struggle with people who find me bossy, intimidating, controlling, and a bitch.
Good thing I'm not afraid to ask someone to leave and close the door behind you. ;)

Here's my bossiness for the day, friends.
Find a way to LIVE, don't just exist.