My click or clash theory has —
Wow.
I’m at a loss for words. I’ve retyped the opening line of this post several times and I stop, delete and try again. It’s such an unusual thing for me, to be so uncomfortable with another person in a way I am finsing it hard to describe. Two adults from different worlds and almost everything she does or says makes me shiver and want to run away.
It’s 6:42 am and I was hoping to wake to some praise waiting for me in my Inbox, but at first glance I see 6 messages from her. Without looking, I know they are all negative, or at least the majority will contain ways I was still wrong. We worked in colaboration the night before, and then after she went to sleep, I styed up quite late in attempts to complete the tasks as per her wishes. This is a web project I’m doing for her, but as a team, we are out of sync.
We clash. This feeling may be from my side only but I suspect it is mutual. I won’t use the hate word because nothing in our interactions would cause that emotional extreme. We just clash in an unspoken uncomfortable feeling that makes me want to avoid her unlike anyone I’ve ever met.
Its not easily described because I have no TV references or scriptures to form a descriptive analogy from. We seem to be two different people and our outlook on life are polar opposite. We naturally make decisions and take actions in different directions. Its not a contrary resistance. She’s not intentionally choosing the opposite of what I would have chosen. She’s making her own choices which just happen to be the opposite. She lives in a world and works in an office with more employees than I can comprehend. My usualy circle of influence is much smaller, and therefore different. A corporate mindset is corporate based and her train of thought reflects the vision of the office where the needs of one are irelivant.
I have to be careful how I word this blog because the truth is, I just don’t really know. She is foreign to me, and so we clash, rather than click. It’s disturbing on a few levels because I’m not used to it.
Our universes are somewhat incompatible. She is not a bad person. This isn’t a right vs wrong issue. It’s just a clash. My energy is drained being around her because everything is an effort. I have to think different, and more often than not, we’re asking each other ovefr and over for clarification, which to me, is interpretted as failure.
It is shocking how a few words from her can crush my joy even faster than I can. If it wasn’t so devistaing on a constant basis, it is actually the kind of thing that would fascinate me. Even writing about it here is exhausting. This mother to a family may be a wonderful women but I can’t break through. I don’t like her, and I don’t like having to deal with her. That is something I almost never say.
I have spent a number of extra few hours working hard trying to make her smile. On this project, she is the one in charge, so I have little choice. I suppose many peoplefeel their bioss is their emotional advesary. In this case, I can’t say I don’t respect her. She is probably great in her corporate world. It’s just not my world.
I feel I should mention, in the four years I’ve known her from an observational position, at least one stage of Kevin Bacon away, I have never once seen her smile. I’ve seen her in wedding photos on Facebook and other happy situations, but her face remains fixed in a serious pose. In the corporate world, I guess it’s always business. Her old Italian face is set in stone, both in my memory and in reality it seems.
It is 7am. I woke up and already she is influencing my day. I decide to ignore the emails, and return to sleep for a while. If I’m going to hate something, I’d always much rather hate it later. I can certainly wait for a few more hours before reading how I’ve failed her this time.
end of part 1.
EDIT: When I checked the mail later, in a better mood ready to face the challenges and resiolve them as I do every day, I was surprised to discover there was no list of new emails at all. My bedside tablet had not yet downloaded the new messages from the day, and was simply showing me the 10 emails we’d been exchanging from the night before, shown as unread on thsi devivce.
Silly me, always assuming the worst and spoiling my mood needlessly.
