Takes some doing ....

I had a nasty run in with someone a few weeks ago. Well, not so much a run in as a snarky series of emails about a misunderstanding. The tone was accusatory, high handed and superior, as though they were talking to an underling (not that underlings deserve to be spoken to like that either).

It got right under my skin. I thought it about for days, composed long emails detailing my bona fides, qualifications and publications with quotes from newspapers and literary journals. I included honorary titles, fellowships and doctorates, referred to my previous life in criminal law and threw in a couple of legal references just in case. High on righteousness, I sent it one of my sisters and said ‘What do you think?’, pretty sure she’d say ‘Yeah, fuck them, send it now with bells on!’ But instead she quoted the above.

Oh, sometimes it’s not nice to have a wiser, older sister who knows you too well. You have to listen and then you have to take it on board. So, what I had done is participated in this person’s behaviour, I had let them in and, in some way, colluded or at least participated in their making me feel bad. The very fact that I thought about it for such a long time was evidence, the stupid emails was evidence, the replaying and replaying of conversations was evidence and also, I had to admit there was some truth in what they said and I had, at least, played a part in the misunderstanding and had to shoulder some of the blame. There’s no excuse for the tone, the intention and the aggression but still…..

Anyway, the lesson for me is - I mean, there’s always a fucking lesson, isn’t there? - you don’t have to give anyone a CV about your worth. But you do have to embed your worth so deep inside that it goes beyond certainty, it becomes your unshakeable foundation so that when someone speaks down to you, their words will bounce off the golden wall of your beautiful selfhood.

Still learning ….

Go well,

Kit