Lessons Learned

Do you ever have those days that start out great, hit a bump and then go downhill quickly? That was my day yesterday. I woke up feeling better than I had in a week: my sinuses were starting to clear, I didn't sound like an 80 year old chain smoker anymore and I was chipper. I had high hopes for the day, and up until lunchtime things were lookin' good.

And then ...dun dun dun... shit hit the fan.

I'm not going to go into the details but I will tell you there has been a workspace issue in my office for a few months now and what should have been a simple mole hill was turned into a freaking fourteener in a matter of minutes. Things were misinterpreted, feelings were hurt, I was turned into the bad guy and at the end of the day 2 supposed adults were acting like children, my patience was worn out and my Catholic guilt was kicking in hardcore. Obviously this was a pleasant situation.

After working through it all via venting to my parents, to the boy (yep, he made an appearance, but things are shaky there) and to the bestie, I came to the conclusions that I had nothing to feel guilty for, I didn't appear to be in the wrong and that I'd learned some valuable lessons:

- It's nice to be on friendly terms with the people who share your space, but you don't have to be friends with them.

- I am not as comfortable with confrontation as I used to be, or is it as I used to think I was?

- Age has nothing to do with how mature a person acts.

- From now on, I will go directly to the supervisors with problems and let them work it out themselves.

- Personal work space is valuable and shouldn't need to be sacrificed.

- Communication and planning from the start can decrease headaches later on.

- When I know in my gut that I'm right, I need to fight off my feelings of guilt.

- I need to work on my clarity in a heated discussion; when I'm feeling threatened I don't express myself as well as I know I am able to.

- No matter how snotty it sounds, validation is a fantastic feeling.

Thank goodness I had a dinner date planned with one of my dearest friends, otherwise I probably would've dwelled on this all night. As it was, I got everything I needed to off of my chest, had a nice evening, enjoyed a Guinness (my latest guilty pleasure) and went to bed feeling good. There have been a few bumps today in regards to yesterday's show down (like I said, mountain out of a mole hill), but I still feel like I did the right thing.