And I Changed Again

Apparently my humor has changed since I’ve moved up here. I’ve always tended to have a dry, sarcastic humor as it was. I’ve also been called mean because I give hard love and don’t sugar coat things. And sometimes I just don’t show emotion and this sometimes offends people or gives them the impression that I’m far too serious or far too much of a self-centered bitch to give a damn about any of them. And if you know me, none of that is true. These are all reasons why I work hard not to judge a person before getting to know them, as hard as it is because according to Keirsey I'm a judger.

As my story goes, a college friend of mine recently got engaged. The girl he’s engaged to called me up all upset one night (after they had broken up) at some point last year and was ranting on and on about what a major A-hole he was. She was totally stirring the pot and wanted it stirred. He said she was drama so she was going to give him drama. Regardless, I think she’s a nice girl. But still, it went on for a couple of hours. I’m talking multiple phone calls here of the same conversation. I told her to go to bed … easier said than done I know. But still, if you’re not going to be able to work and change something, then go to bed. Anyway, I congratulated him, told him I was happy for him if he was happy and added my splash of humor that I wasn’t going to be taking any late night phone calls of venting that he was an A-hole. I thought it was funny, he did not. And I had to send a message back kindly telling him that I truly was not trying to be a major bitch and reminding him, “Hey, you’ve known me long enough to know my humor so don’t stone me.” I’m taking it with a grain of salt, but it did make me take a step back to consider this.

I personally would have laughed if a friend had said something to me about it – mainly because I have many a times laughed at such statements in moments of congratulatory mentions or reminders of the crazy bad choices I've made.

But in my step back, I realized that I’ve been poking fun at myself about the bad times to help desensitize me to them. And by “poking fun at myself about the bad times” I mean “When we send the boys to Jane’s house I tend to remind myself of what happened the last time we sent them to Jane’s in a hearty, laughing kind of way to spark hopes of optimism that it won’t happen again.”

It’s a part of my “I’m not going to think negatively” campaign. Is this sugar coating? Possibly in a way, yes. It’s also, I hope, being the bigger person and giving her a chance to be their mother and not dwell on the fact that yes, I’m probably going to have to fix whatever it is she broke. Or maybe for once she won’t break something. I kind of view it as telling someone to break a leg before they go out to dance on stage. My ballet teacher used to do that all the time, she said it brought good luck.

But I’ve concluded, my humor has changed, a lot. If anything, it’s changed to help me cope with my new life. And it’s working for me, and I can try to be more gentle with friends that need it, but they’ll just have to accept me for who I have become because if I can’t laugh and poke fun at myself, then man, life will suck. And I can tell you now – my life doesn’t suck.