Someone told me today that they have hard time reconciling my real life good cheer with whatever the tone of the moment is in the ol’ Kat Box. I’m cheerful to the point of being annoying most days, and often those same days, the postings in the Kat Box will be sad or serious or pissed.
I think the explanation is that I sort out all of the mayhem in my head right here for all the world to read so that when you deal with me in person (for the lucky few of you that get to bask in the glow of my glorious Katness), you get a fairly happy Kat most of the time.
It’s an interesting contrast to who I used to be, and who I used to be was a mess of exceptionally angry with huge doses of sad and fearful thrown in for good measure. I was a raging out of control wreck for a long time with a menacing temper (for example, it’s been a few years since I’ve Walker-Texas-Ranger’ed a deadbolted door open with a swift kick).
My temper is still fairly quick to heat up these days, but it’s just as quick to dispel. I try not to hold grudges. Sometimes I need some quiet to collect my wits, but I don’t like to argue anymore—arguing is not a sport that I want to medal in. I’m not perfect, I still yell, but then I feel like a jackass, so I try not to do it often.
I’ve learned to let it go, let it go, let it go…sounds so simple to type it out, but it took me years to get a handle on who I am (not who others want me to be, who someone manipulative might wish I was and try to push me to be). Once I got a grip on who I am at heart, then I started evaluating negative situations to determine if I could change anything about them or control any aspect of it. If I couldn’t change the negative, then I had the choice to roll with it as it was or just walk away.
I’ve walked away from a lot—not just the Mr. Kats, folks; over the years I’ve walked from friendships and business opportunities and the like because there was more negative than positive. Walking away was rarely easy, but for the things I get to choose, I want to choose the good stuff, the happy stuff. And I’ve also chosen to roll with some of the negative, just roll with it, not accept it all as my problem, just go with the flow. Stampin’ T and I say almost every single day “It is what it is.” We’re zen like that.
And when I get irked or sad or need to sort something out, I come here because every day isn’t rainbows and unicorns and Hallmark cards. I type it out. I make sense of it as I go. Seldom do I blog about a problem and not feel at least a little better right away. And then you have your Happy Kat back, the bouncing Tigger-like spaz that I am in person, ready to cheer you on and bake cakes and take calls and send 100 emails and sing songs and be a goofy goober. I believe it was the wise Spongebob Squarepants who said, “We’re all goofy goobers.” Find your inner goofy goober and nurture it!