Journal #5 - Thursday

There are days that I sit in the evening, with my allowance of decaf for the night, and reflect on my day - tonight was one of those evenings. Today was a VERY busy day. I took turns trading off and on my student hat, mom hat, and housekeeper hat, but I also had a situation to deal with that had made me quite unhappy (well, angry actually). I don't like to fight with people, I don't like confrontations, I would rather work things out. On the other hand, I don't back down from a disagreement, I will not agree just to keep the peace.

The situation was one where I was unhappy about something, and felt that I had a right to have the situation taken care of by the party responsible. I did not expect said party to agree with me, and had decided that this was a time that I needed to stand up for myself. So I got the kids showered, fed, dressed and off to school, then grabbed my things and headed to class myself. Due to the rather pointed emails that I had made last night regarding my difficulties, I got a call on my cell phone as I was headed to class. As I explained the situation, and what steps needed to be taken to rectify it, I was not encouraged. The response I got was one that I was expecting, "Sorry, I don't think that we can do that." Hmm... Well, since I was now under the power of my second cup of coffee, I calmly (mostly) explained my side of the situation and the reasoning behind the request I was now making to fix it. Silence on the other end of the call told me that I was not getting very far with the calm and rational :( Taking a breath, I explained with a bit more oomph that this situation was UNACCEPTABLE (that was always my mothers keyword, if it was unacceptable you better watch out) through no fault of my own, and I certainly wasn't going to be penalized for it. Perhaps the woman on the other end of the phone heard the capital letters in my voice, or maybe she has a mother much like my own, but she suggested that she could speak with someone else in her office about it and would call me back. I am not unreasonable, and since I know that this woman was just doing her job, and that it really wasn't her fault to begin with, I was more than willing to see this as a step in the right direction.

To make a long story short, or not so short I guess, she did call me back a few minutes later and told me that they would indeed be able to work this situation out for me. To my credit I did thank her for her help, since I really did appreciate that she was willing to hear me out and see what she could do, and then did my little happy dance as I bee-bopped toward class. As I said, it was a busy day with lots of things going on, but the one thing that I will take from this day, was that regardless of whether or not I was feeling overwhelmed, frantic, picked on, or unappreciated, I stood up for myself. Not only that I was able to stand up for myself to work out a difficult situation, but that I was able to carry myself and act in a way that I can point out to my kids and show as an example of how you can be assertive and a strong person without being mean or condecending to others. Gosh, I might even have to tell my mom so she can pat herself on the back for doing such a great job as my example. :)