There is a person in my life who I could not stand. Whenever I was around her, I only felt negative energy, anxiety, and stress. She is not a soft, sweet soul. Everyone who has met her has always had at least one negative thing to say about her. I’ll tell you right now, everyone is telling the truth. She is just fine knowing people don’t like her and she moves around the world not liking most people around her. I’m not sure what traumas she has faced in her lifetime but she has opened up about some which explains her demeanor very clearly.
Usually, I’m one to seperate myself from people like this immediately but unfortunately, I have to partner with her for the community and I have to look at the bigger picture. We tolerate each other for the kids in the community. Although, I have to work side by side with this person at times, I never ever have hesitated to let her hear my mouth or bounce back her bad energy x 10. We have actually been able to collaborate with each other for about 6 years or so without huge confrontation until October 2022.
She’s not very good at communicating with people. Her go to approach is to speak to everyone as if she is the highest ranking officer in the military. Ok, maybe I’m being a tad bit dramatic (a TAD!). She just uses the same authoritative tone she uses with the children with the adults but adds a hint of attitude.
No thank you ma’am. That is not how you speak to us.
Anyway, since I am not the one, I gave her a taste of her own medicine and since then we both let our displeasures about each other fester within us the entire school year.
Fast forward to the last day of school, I had initiated a conversation with this person to give us a time and place to air out our grievances to each other and we did just that. We didn’t need a whole day or even an hour. She’s an associate that I just needed to be civil with. We only needed 10 minutes. I let her know about herself, because she would never admit to any wrongdoing. She also would never believe her ACTIONS triggered MY REACTIONS. I’m in my healing era, I wouldn’t pop off all willy nilly if it wasn’t warranted. (lol.) But I also didn’t leave the conversation without admitting my faults in the situation we were in. I didn’t need to always react in the ways that I did (although, again, she started it!! lol – healing is a journey not a destination, I’m still human!)
In the end we agreed to make the rest of the time we need to collaborate together to be a more pleasant one and she actually wanted to hug it out. She is not a hugger by any means so she either wanted me to get the hell out of the room and be done with this or she was actually overly consumed with peace in that moment. I’m going to go with more of the first with just a tiny spec of the second.
When I get into a disagreement with someone and a conversation is had, apologies have been swapped and better actions have been promised, I keep my word. I will never talk about the past again. We will continue to move forward with our promises of better actions and reactions. Well, at least I will, since I can’t speak for her. But as the new school year has begun it looks to be going well. I don’t look at her and see red anymore. (Ha!)
Do I think she is a better person? No.
Do I think she is fake during our interactions? Yes.
But the better question is, have I changed? Hella.
I walked into that room at the end of the last school year mentally exhausted, a negative fog surrounding me, and ready for battle. And with great friends and therapy sessions (we’ll get into more of that in a later post), I walked into the new school year a slightly different person. I’ve learned she, or anyone else that isn’t down for me for that matter, doesn’t deserve any of my extra energy. I learned not to feed a negative situation because it will only bring me down into darkness. I learned to let a lot of things go, take a step back and breath because not everything is as big of a monstrosity as I make it out to be.
There can be peace if you want it. And I NEEDED it.
Peace.
Crown and Coffee 