Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Coming Across

"I can’t respond without becoming emotional to be honest...." I said this. I stated it in an email to a co-worker, in what I thought divulged the difficulty of a conversation with a demanding customer. And could be a cry for help.

Is this the statement of a person failing in comunication, or bravely stating it like it is? I just like to believe that the people I reach out to care, but really, they just want everything easy and easily categorized.

I keep witnessing the failure of those listening/reading to turn more compassionately to the task of listening when something sounds out of the norm. I have been very quiet the last three or four weeks, yet whenever I turn my attention to that day -- those few personal and phone interactions from late June, I become very sad.

I am wounded and still feel wounded. I've been documented in a performance review, held just under two weeks later, as sometimes coming across sharp and abrasive.

It's perception. I do not agree with this perception of who I am, or even who I am trying to be. I continue to carry a defensive attitude that I know has bubbled up a few times in a work environment, and I've been called on it.

These perceptions that cause people to hear statements I never said, believe and state that I have acted rudely, or less than in any number of ways...they puzzle me.

I want it to cease. If any word was going to be used for my stressed responses, I'd prefer intense, but if I think about the type of performances I admire that are intense, I am not that. It's probably also why I disdain the use of "sharp"...pfft I'm dull.

Dedicated, problem solver, smart...I have these qualities too, and no one is denying those, not even me. Well, I'm feeling a bit of push back on those stand out qualities most times my teen responds to me, but that's one of those areas where I feel like all I can do is wait it out. In business I'm not so sure I can naively wait for other people to just like me warts and all.

So, I'm starting now. Not sure how it's going to look or feel, but I'm dropping anything that are words to fill space, sound superior, or "a good idea." I'm going to try on the bend-over backwards persona that injects little opinion, until I'm in a job where opinion is called for. I'm just going to be more patient. I'm going to accept and I'm going to move forward. I forgive myself for nothing and everything, and I won't expect that from anyone but me. I really may be the only one who knows this person that stands firm and doesn't "come across" in any way other than admirable.