Expect the Worst, Hope for the Best

I hate the phone. Mostly I think because when someone is calling me, I get this death feeling that I'm in trouble and my mind starts going at about 100 miles an hour of all the things I've done since I last spoke to whoever is calling me to try and figure out what they are going to get on my case about.

And 99% of the time, I'm not in trouble.

Yeah, figure that one out.

I also hate being criticized or reprimanded. I seriously can't stand it. Even some friendly 'hey, just to let you know's break me. I don't know why. I seriously don't. But I do know that I hate being yelled at or sternly talked to. I hate when people tell me 'I don't like that.'

But I pretend to put on the tough exterior. I put on my brave face and I wait until I'm in the shower by myself before I let the floodgates open.

And to top it all off, I generally assume things are worse than they really are. Like when my dad called me today to talk to me about a comment I left on a facebook status. He didn't want to hurt my feelings, but he wanted to talk to me about it. He made it sound like people were offended by my remark.

I was worried.

I wanted to avoid the kingdom that is facebook until I felt like I was ready to face the music. I promptly went to the shower and let it all out. My eyes were still red when I donned my sweatpants and sweatshirt. I made it as far as the hallways before I saw Prince coming toward my room to find out where I was.

I stopped walking.

He instantly knew I wasn't okay and spent the next half hour trying to figure out what was wrong. I just talked to my dad on the phone, I just told Zelda about it, and I didn't really feel like talking about it some more.

I felt like I'd let people down. I felt judged and hated and I didn't even want to read other people's replies to my comment because I didn't want to see what I felt was inevitable to find. So I just laid in Prince's arms while he talked about something I don't remember.

And when he left to go shower so we could go to Bob's in our PJs together, I got on my computer. Unfortunately my homepage is facebook. Temptation begged me to read the other comments. I was sure people were angry with me. I was certain my aunt was probably mad at me.

But I thought "they are family! they know me! they know that I don't want to offend them! this is ridiculous!"

I clicked the link, and with guilty eyes I read the other comments below mine. I held my breath.

And guess what? No one hated me. No one was angry. They took it in a light hearted way, just like I'd intended. The point of my comment was that my aunt had typed xian instead of christian and I had to re-read the word to figure out what she meant.

I ended up learning something too. My oma said that X is the Greek symbol that means Christ. (But that still doesn't mean I'm okay with people saying 'merry xmas' because I still think that's a cop out to avoid offending people that are probably going to be offended by Christmas anyway whether or not you wish them a merry one.)

Also it was reinforced to me that I always go into things expecting the absolute worst, and then I didn't get the absolute worst. I actually didn't feel like they hated me at all.

So why do I let myself get all worked up in the first place? Why do I let my imagination get the better of me? I still have no idea.

No. Idea.