who I am

I am mischaracterized entirely too often. Who is the real me? I guess I don't let many people know. My husband does; my parents do. My boss does. A couple coworkers, those that have taken the time, do. A couple close friends do as well. I am guarded otherwise, protecting my too-soft core from the pokes and prods I think I would feel if I didn't put up this wall. There's constant activity behind my blank stares. I'm thinking, analyzing my next word or move, calculating your motive, plotting my response.

It's not coldness, and it's not that I don't care. It takes me a while, sometimes, to come up with what I feel is an appropriate reaction. It takes a while, sometimes, for the actuality of a situation to settle on me, for my feelings to get into alignment about it. I over-analyze more than necessary, causing problems for myself by cherry-picking words into oblivion, losing their original and ultimate meaning somewhere in the fray. I have seen the damage reacting without thinking can cause, and I over correct. I need to let go, I suppose, but I have no idea how.

I do know some things. I am not passive aggressive. Aggressive, maybe, when I believe in something, but I'm never passive about my opinions. I am not a bitch. I am truthful, honest, sometimes to the point where it hurts, but it always comes from a place of caring; if I didn't care, I wouldn't bother in the first place. I am not an ice queen. I feel too much, I pull everything in. I let everything happen to me, beauty and terror, and it sticks to my soul. I am not a closed book. If you just try, I'll open up, but I'm not the kind to blurt out my innermost thoughts to people who haven't proven themselves to me. I am not black and white. There is an unlimited range inside me, the ability to flex and grow and change with the tides, as long as those tides work with me and not against me. I am me. I am wholly myself.

I am struggling against a couple coworkers. I say a couple and they are in fact a couple: they have started to date each other. We put out an "employee satisfaction" survey last month, and while there was a fair amount of criticism from everyone, most was constructive except for what we received from those two. Everything is wrong, from the way we run payroll to the way we discipline to the office lighting. We were told they were freshening up their resumes and hated coming to work. The surveys were supposed to be anonymous but neither did a good job camouflaging themselves in their answers. I, in particular, am a lazy passive aggressive bitch who gets off on making rules and coming down on people who don't follow them and on making people's lives miserable by not buying ashtrays or starting direct deposit.

I'm trying to get over it. They don't know me. The people here who know me know that when I discipline or call someone out, it's because I know in my heart they can do better, not just for me but for themselves and for this company. I believe in them. My ultimate goal is the health and success of this company and thus the success of everyone who works here. I do my best to watch our cash flow and maintain stability. I have to keep people in line because chaos here begets chaos for our customers, and we would fail in chaos. If we fail, we're all sunk, and then we wouldn't even have the luxury of our complaints. It would all be gone.

I carry this all with me, the worry of an entire company, and I do my best with it. So it hurts to be unjustly characterized. My boss talked to them about their attitude and thought he got through, explaining that I have a job to do and to give me a little grace. Maybe it worked for a while, but I don't feel like they will ever be able to fully come back into the fold. I have thought about talking to them myself, but I can't seem to come up with the right words. I go back and forth between wanting to scream and wanting to be understanding, so I have left it alone and continue to go about my business as I normally would. If they want to think of me as they do without trying to get to know the real me, it's their loss.