 My ego got dinged this weekend, and I swiftly and assertively struck back. Even as the words came out of my mouth, I regretted them. I don’t think I was excessively rude, but I definitely reacted more harshly than was necessary, especially since my ego checker’s intent was not malicious.
Ever since the incident, I’ve been analyzing the root cause of my defensiveness. In other words, what the hell was my problem and why did I act like an ass? I was at a small social gathering, and the crowd comprised mostly people I had just met for the first time that evening. The hostess has been a friend of mine for years, but we hadn’t seen each other in quite a while. I was thrilled to get her invitation because I’m slowly working my way out of a year-long self-imposed isolation. Literally, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to “get back out in the world.” Seeing an old friend while meeting some new ones at an impromptu after-the-holidays party? Yeah, it sounded like fabulous idea, and it was.
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 Dear Ethan,
Dude. So you’re going to be 18 years old in just six months. My maxim for a while now has been that you’ll be getting luggage for your birthday. I say it only partly in jest, and you know where that comes from. … The past few years have been rough on both of us, and we’ve had our share of, ahem, challenges. To say that high school did not work out for you would be an understatement. Our family drama did not help that, I know. I’m sorry for not handling things a little better on my end. All told, I think we’re past the worst of it now, though. Thank God. I’m really proud of the initiative you’ve started to take. Studying hard for the GED test and committing to a new job at Kroger are huge strides in your maturity. I don’t think you’re quite ready to run a Fortune 500 company, but you are a hell of lot more prepared for the real world than you were just a year ago.  My BFF pointed out to me recently that I don’t know how to date like a normal person. See, I’m finally starting to re-engage with the world after the breakup of my marriage earlier this year, so I’ve started to furtively peek over the edge of the singles scene again, kind of like a suburban prairie dog … or something. Anyway, I recently mentioned something about a certain fella to my friend, and she promptly laughed at me. “Uh huh. You don’t know how to just date a guy,” she said.
“Now wait just a second…” I retorted, then reconsidered. “No. You’re right. I am totally clueless.”  If I had to name a precious gift in my life today, one of them would be my relationship with my best friend, Whitney. We met about 10 years ago, hit it off pretty much immediately, and now I cannot picture my life without her in it. I have shown this woman my ass on more than one occasion, both literally and metaphorically, and yet she still takes my calls.
We have laughed hysterically, gossiped, yelled, argued and made up, sometimes all in the same day. We are excellent road trip companions, especially during a once-a-year jaunt to the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. We have held onto each other through breakups. We stood by each other at our weddings (and not just the ceremonies; all the planning and associated crap that led up to them). She put up with me during my “angry Amy” years. I supported her during her “can’t date a man who actually lives in the same city” phase. We have seen each other ugly cry. More than once. In another life, I wrote a weekly newspaper column for Business First. It went through a few iterations, but in the end, it was a vehicle for me to relate the random experiences of my life to the business world. It was called “The Hook Up” for about half its life, but after a fun little reader’s contest, it was renamed “I’m Just Saying.” A few years later, in 2007, I left the paper and the column was shelved. I have to confess that I much preferred its retirement over being replaced with a new writer. There was way too much of me in there to just hand it over. That would have been like handing over my son to someone else to raise.
The official tagline for my little column was that it was aimed toward business professionals under age 40 primarily because, at the time, I was one of them. But unofficially, I heard from a lot of 40+ readers over the years who said they read it to keep up with the younger generation of workers. I took that as a huge compliment. I mean, influential people in the Louisville business community actually gave a damn about what I had to say. Little did they know I had no clue what I was talking about! |
About Amy HiggsA former newspaper columnist, Amy takes her random, slice-of-life stories to the web. After 12 years, she's still just saying. Archives
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