It's Raining Snow (And I'm Opening Up)

As much as I heart Denver, there is just something weird about - as Nat King Cole puts it - Spring Snow. We're getting several inches here in the city. Not that it's sticking, but there's just a lot of snow falling.

The thing I have yet to get over since moving here is that when it snows, it means business. There are no lazy flakes cascading to the ground. It rains snow. It snows as fast as sleet and rain and...whatever else falls from the sky quickly. And, Lord help you if the wind is blowing. White outs, here we come.

That's totally not today but I wanted to use a picture to break up all this text

I want to write about how I've come to terms with being hated. Like, viciously hated.

How about that total lack of a segue?

I don't know what life is like for other people, but what I can see from TV shows and books and friends is that you go through life and some relationships are great and some aren't and some are fairly annoying. Life has its ups and downs and maybe you come across one or two bad apples.

Not me.

For some reason, I have rubbed some pretty mean people the really wrong way. Inadvertently. Accidentally. Unknowingly. And it has left me scarred. For a few years, the culmination of some experiences sent me into depression - which I'm on the other side of now.

I once had a lady whom I barely knew file an HR report against me for racism at work. I didn't even work with her. I didn't even know about it until my boss called me in and talked to me about it. I was floored. So was he. It wasn't anything that was taken seriously but because I worked for a very large and bureaucratic company, that report remained a part of my file. (I also received the highest evaluation possible - which was extremely rare at that company - but somehow I don't remember that as often.)

When I started this blog, and for the first couple of years I was posting, a coworker was actively, on a daily basis, trying to get me fired. She was one of those people I sort of half expected to slash my tires or hack into my email or set my office on fire. It got to the point that the CEO OF THE COMPANY used to tease me about it. As in, "Oh! You still work here? You're not fired yet?"

And in a few weeks I'll go to my brother's wedding and encounter a family member who hates me with a vengeance. I have no idea if I'll be ignored or if there will be some kind of fit thrown in the middle of the vows.

One of my students from last semester is contesting their grade and has confronted me on multiple occasions online and even at my writing consultant job.

I am not politically or religiously outspoken. I am not confrontational. I am not - on the other hand - passive aggressive or catty. And yet I am very, very hated.

But guess what? That's okay. It's something I've had to deal with in one way or another for the majority of my life and after a few years of what I will call Dealing With It on an Intense Level That I Hope Never to Do Again, I'm 100% okay with people (1) being mad at me, (2) just plain not liking me, and the doozie, (3) hating me.

I figure, if someone can try as hard at life and as relationships as I do, and still be hated? That just can't be my problem. It's just got to lie elsewhere. I can't carry that burden around so I let it go. I don't mean that it's something I continually remind myself to let go; I mean, it's gone.

I mean, I have become a different person. A more armored and offensive (as in warfare, not as in rudeness) version of myself. All those scars have now formed a very thick and protective skin. I don't need my coworkers or my bosses or my students to love me. Or like me. Or approve of me on a personal level. I don't need to please them or make them happy. I don't expect them to make me happy either. While I'm a fairly sensitive and vulnerable person, that soft part is protected by an armored shell that is not penetrable.

I have no idea why I decided to open up about that today of all days. I actually had a really good day - the kind of day that makes me feel like I just might be good at this teaching thing.

But I'm happy nobody knows what car I drive. Just sayin.