Awareness: Self and other wise

My mother in law is visiting for a couple of weeks. We get along, and she cooks for us! Which is wonderful! Plus, she wants to come to all the kid’s activities, and just watch her be a kid. They make cookies, and they have sleepovers. That means the husband and I get to out and have adult fun. And that’s how my mother in law spends her vacation, cooking and baby sitting for us! Have I mentioned how much I love her? Well, last weekend my sister in law came down to also spend some time with us and the kid. Plus it was her birthday. I want to nick name her Double O Mag Ma’am (she knows why), but that might be to long. We’ll call her Double O. Well, at some point Double O, the husband and I were sitting at the kitchen table talking about resting bitch faces:

“Do you think I have a resting bitch face?” I asked to nobody in particular

“YES!!” Answered Double O very enthusiastically, without me actually finishing the word face! And then she kept nodding, just in case I didn’t understand the verbal answer. All three of us bursted out in laughter!

“Really?! Why don’t you think about that for a second or so?!” I asked still chuckling.

“I’m so happy you answered that!” Interjected the husband

I’m not sure if he was happy because she’s right, because he didn’t have ans-

OF COURSE IS BECAUSE SHE’S RIGHT!

At least I’m aware of these things:

1- I have a short fuse.

2- I’m not very forgiving.

3- I have a resting bitch face.

Today somebody called me rude. I asked that they try not to be forty-five minutes late, and I’m being rude.

Like the time I had somebody waiting for me for over 45 minutes because I “dozed off.” Or the time they waited all day to go to the playground just for me to cancel at the last possible minute. It must be like the time where I celebrated my mother’s birthday and didn’t invite this person. Must be like every time I called this person a looser, or a freak, because a person that has a healthy sexual relationship with her husband is clearly a slut and must be shamed.

For the record, I didn’t do ANY of this. Because I try to respect people. I respect the time and effort that they spend for me or because of me. I’m a very accommodating person. As I’m getting older, I’m learning how to build better boundaries, how to hold people responsible for their actions, how to say “I disagree with you” and “I’m NOT doing that.” Some times it’s harder than others. Some times I double guess myself, and my opinions, and I would like to avoid conflict and don’t want to give my self small anxiety attacks.

But other times, it takes everything I have just to not call people out on their shit and curse them out. The husband says that once you introduce curse words into the argument, then it becomes immature and bullish, and nobody is getting their point across. I’m not rude, historically the behavior of this person is to arrive late, whenever they want. I’m not about to disrespect my mother in law to accommodate somebody’s childish behavior!

One time the husband and I were talking to another couple, and at one point I brought up the price of the top that I was wearing (because I got a good deal, and I don’t normally have much to talk about with this person), but, without even looking up from her phone she said something about not shopping at this particular store or buying anything that cheap cause it was clearly made by sweat shops and she wasn’t about to contribute to child labor. By the way, this person, grown up person, dresses in little girl’s clothes from Target. The other day she and her partner got very upset about a thirty-something year old man going on a date with a twenty-two year old. Really? Cause you have a plethora of plastic surgery to make yourself look younger, you have breast implants that are clearly not a natural size for your body and frame, and you have argued that the little girls clothes fit you better. They don’t fit you better, they fit you tighter! That’s why you wear them! You are sexualizing little girls clothing, and you are trying to be younger! And You wonder how can a grown man like younger women?! Have you seen yourself?

Maybe I’m being to sensitive. Maybe I need a new hobby. Maybe I need to retreat into my cave, cause interacting with the outside world its clearly becoming a challenge. Maybe keeping my mouth shut has become an exercise of will power, and we all know that never works.

The husband says that this is the year to shut the f*** up. I think it might be the year to only talk with people who want to listen to you AND you want to listen to!