The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Clear

The tension between us has eased, but neither of us took the first step. Well, maybe I did, but just a little one. There was no conversation, no tearful tirade which left us both tired and frustrated because ultimately none of it matters. Life is short. Let’s get on with it.

It’s always been my style to confront. I like solutions, I like discussion. I never seem to remember that not everyone feels the same way, that a lot of people really like to leave things where they are. I can’t understand that. I can’t understand why this is preferable to finding a way out of it. Isn’t the key to good communication, talking?

Maybe it’s the way I talk. Many difficult conversations at my workplace involved the manager asking me, sheepishly, to handle the ones she didn’t think she could deal with. If the person on the receiving end was someone who annoyed me or who had been especially difficult to deal with, I jumped in with two feet. I’ve caused a lot of people to burst into tears in my day, and while I should feel badly about this, I mostly feel proud. There was P., a pathological liar who thought she was being crafty by turning members of the staff against some of the better performers. She spread lies about them, twisted things they’d say in her favour, and she stirred, stirred, stirred. I watched it all from a close distance, and I waited. Then, when I had enough information to essentially flatten her, I called her in to the office to ‘chat’. I let her ramble for about ten minutes about any concerns she had, and then I went in for the kill. I brought out every lie, every self-serving anecdote which I had gone to the trouble of writing down for clarity. I had hand-written accounts from staff who signed them off, telling of the things she’d told them, and then I put them altogether, like a chart, to show her where the inconsistencies were. She cried, she turned white and I was satisfied. She wanted to quit on the spot, but I advised against it. She had bills to pay, she didn’t have another job lined up, and it didn’t make sense for her to walk away. She blubbered into her sleeve and asked what she should do. I was as blunt as I always am, but maybe with a bit more honey in my voice: ‘You need to apologize, get it together, and move ahead without getting mired down in the nonsense.’

She did, and things were better for a while, until she got a job somewhere where her past couldn’t follow her, where her good behaviour would not be scrutinized.

My point is, I like to get into the thick of it because I feel like sitting back doesn’t accomplish much. It gives permission, that silence, it takes a pass on opportunity. Of course, one of the main criticisms M. has is that my style is abrasive and hard to handle. I just think he isn’t used to it, myself.

I’d like to engage in more productive exchanges with him, but I have had to be sensitive to his more delicate way of dealing with things. It makes me more angry most of the time, because I will be busting with words and phrases that I have been going over in my head from the time the conflict would arise, and I’d have to swallow all of it, because he wouldn’t know how to deal with it. He wants me to phrase things in a softer way, use words that aren’t accusatory, and to this I think ‘Please, just get over yourself, daisy’. Sometimes I say it, but it’s usually when the two of us are so beyond reasonable that any attempt to zing him falls flat.

He’s a good man, far more mature than I’ve ever been, but part of accepting who I am is being who I am. I like to get it all out there. I need to release my thoughts, no matter how acidic they may be perceived to be. I don’t want to be thinking about whether the nuance is there. I don’t want to be concerned about wounding him with volume.

The love is totally there, but it takes a beating with every missed conversation, with each day of careful quiet…