My Distaste for Drama...Friends, Family, Internet, or Otherwise

March 21, 2009

Disclaimer: I, Amy Lawson, take full and complete responsibility for the contents of this post. Any comments, questions, or concerns should be directly addressed to me, where I will reply, delete, or make fun of you at my own discretion.

Sometimes I kick myself for starting this blog--not because it's a lot of work, or any pressure whatsoever. Sometimes I kick myself for making my life so darn vulnerable to a complete group of faceless (and occasionally spineless) strangers.

But, rest assured, 99.9% of the time, I love this whole blogging thing. It's mind boggling how much support and inspiration I've gained from a complete group of faceless (and huge hearted) strangers. I have a lot of friends out there.

Just so you know, I write this blog for three reasons and three reasons only:

1) I love to write, it's my hobby. And if I do say so myself, it's one of my talents.

2) Making fun of myself--which is the theme of the vast majority of my posts--makes a sometimes challenging life a whole lot more palatable. For example, when I come home on a Monday thinking, "Wow, I might lose my job," I almost want to curl up and seep into the floor. But when I use my blog to translate that news into, "Actually, I think I'd love working at Rite Aid. Something about knowing who suffers with anal itching in my town would make me feel very powerful," I'm somehow able to go on with my day and not let the worst case scenario swallow me up. In other words, this blog helps me gain some measure of personal perspective.

3) Apparently, and not purposefully, this blog makes other people happy. Once or twice a week I get an email from a virtual stranger that says something like, "I print up my favorite posts and put them in my purse for when I have my chemo treatments. Then I give them to the nurses so they can give them to them to the other cancer patients." Or, "My mother is terminally ill, and your stories are one of the only thing that make me smile these days." Or, plain and simply, "You make me laugh." Well okay then, if my asinine tales of talking into a wallet can do that, then I will continue to make fun of myself until the day I die.

Recently I took part in an internet media project apart from this blog. Some of you might know about it, but for those of you who don't, it will remain unnamed. And recently, I got ripped up and down by a handful of people who "are disappointed by my judgement," and claim that "people like [me] are the problem with America today." And so on and so forth. There was too much tattling for a group of grown adults, and far too much drama for a group of people who have all, as far as I know, graduated from junior high.

Are my feelings hurt? No.

Do I feel bad about hurting feelings? Obviously, yes.

Am I embarrassed by all of the negative attention? Yes.

Am I annoyed by all of the useless hoopla? You have no idea.

The purpose of this post is twofold. First, I process things through writing--and I know darn well that I won't move on from this event until I've written it all the way through. And second, if you are the key player who inflated this event, I'll kindly invite you to kiss my rear. And yes, you can forward that line to anyone you'd like--because I've thought it through, and from the bottom of my heart, I mean it.

And most of all, most of all, I detest when little events are blown out of proportion--so obviously, this entire situation is not what I classify as fun.

So, with that said, I can safely assume that I'm fired.

Phew, now that's a relief.

You may commence the throwing of tomatoes in the comments section.