Learning to take my own advice

So a busy couple of days and lots more stuff going on, but focusing on the positive, The Dark Knight Rises has to be the best film I’ve seen all year. I went to see it with Marc when it came out last Friday and we were so speechless that we walked from the cinema and drove from the car park without uttering much more than ‘what did you think?’ We took a moment to gather our thoughts then geeked out all the way home.

Due to an unfortunate series of events, I ended up having to bail on plans with Marc at last minute the other day, a lot was going on and I was already upset, but I managed to convince myself that he was annoyed and not talking to me and several texts and unreturned phone calls later, convinced myself we were in trouble. After talking to one of my friends, I realised just how common this is. Why do we over react like this? While I know he would have to be a total arse to throw four years of a happy relationship away because of one night of cancelled plans and that if he was upset, he would calm down, my inner psychopath was working herself into a frenzy, alternating between being angry at him for being such an arse (even though technically now I think about it, he hadn’t done anything) and feeling abandoned and upset and desperately trying to engage him in conversation by sending messages to both his phone and iPad.

I asked him about it yesterday, to which he looked confused and said ‘there wasn’t anything wrong. You needed to stay home and I’d just finished a twelve hour shift, was in a horrible mood and didn’t want to see or speak to anyone really and felt like that all weekend. It wasn’t you and I was asleep for a lot of your texts.’

So I had worked myself up over nothing again. While this does prove my theory that men also have a time of month where they hate life and want to eat everything and sulk, it also makes me feel like a total drip. What ever happened to women being strong and independent? If it was one of my friends behaving how I was I would have told them to ‘man up and get on with your life, it doesn’t stop for him.’ But when it comes down to it, I care just a little bit too much, and am partial to a bit of self-blame, whether the conflict is with Marc, my family or my friends. So I need to change this. I need to start viewing the situation as though I were an outsider and take my own advice, even if it is uncharacteristic and therefore scary. I need to stay calm and not jump to conclusions. In this case, I should have told myself to ‘calm down, it might not be anything you’ve done, and if it is, he’ll calm down eventually.’

Currently, I’m trying to put myself forward for a year 7 orienteering day at the uni on Monday. It’s a paid position, which is always a bonus as yet again, I am overdrawn and car tax is looming, but I have no idea what I’m meant to be to be doing. I’ve not once worked one of these events and felt like a bit of an idiot emailing to ask what is expected of me. In fact, I almost pulled out because I didn’t want to look inexperienced and stupid next to the workers that have done it all the time. But I realised I’ve looked worse. I’ve just spent 6 weeks running a workshop and before that, did a starter activity with a class whose full time teacher was watching every minute of it. I’ve done scarier things, all experience is good experience and it’s only one day. Plus it helps towards my car tax, so I’d be stupid to turn it down.

As for the rest of the day, I shall be making the most of my day off by reading and maybe seeing one of my friends for a bit, which hopefully won’t cost me money, because we all know I have very little will power where food or fun is concerned.