Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to spend time with someone I haven’t seen since the 8th grade.  Maggie and I weren’t really ever friends in school but we hung out in the same group.  Neither of us knows exactly why we never formed a relationship but frankly, it was probably dumb girl stuff and we were never given the opportunity to do so.  Now, through the wonders of Facebook, we have reconnected and frankly, she’s one of the coolest chicks I could ever hope to meet.  It’s odd to find someone you used to know (though admittedly not well) and to realize that your lives have taken a series of similar turns and that the end result is that they are quite like you.  I have very few people in my life that have taken the same path through life and come out to be like me in personality so when we get together it’s kind of a cosmic explosion and constant talking.  Thankfully the Mr is used to this and Maggie’s lovely fiance` could hold his own throughout it all.  It was a fantastic day and more so, a little inspiring.

It got me thinking a lot about how my own life is progressing and the relationships (both work and personal) that revolve around me.  Personal relationships are pretty great right now.  I’ve gotten to a point of maturity that I really only have positive, encouraging, friendly faces around me who are strong enough to tell me if I’m off base without being mean.  I feel as though I’ve really turned a serious adult corner in the last couple of years and this has also caused me to clash a little bit with other people (women honestly).  At first I couldn’t see the cause, I didn’t get the reaction because I am normally a very likable person who will go out of my way to be friendly but lately, this hasn’t been working so awesome for me.  Some days are fantastic, some days I just have to rely on my thick skin and a sense of belief that whatever is being hurled at me is not really about me.

Oddly enough I have a friend who seems to be going through the exact same thing right now and we are enough alike in personality that I have to think that it’s not so much about us but about the people that are circling us.  See, I’m a strong ass personality type.  When I open my mouth it’s because I have something to say.  When I tell you something, I’m 99.999% sure I’m completely right.  When I do something and don’t ask for assistance it’s because I don’t need it, not because I’m stubborn (I save all this crap for the Mr.), and frankly, it doesn’t go down so well all the time.

See, I’m a pretty confident woman.  I’m secure in my knowledge of what I’m doing, in who I am, what I look like, how I speak, what I think, and my own strength.  It wasn’t till recently that I learned that this is a pretty intimidating personality type.  Maybe even overbearing at times.  This confidence though comes from years upon years of experience, knowledge seeking, and fucking hard work.  It’s not like I woke up one day and was a complete badass, no people, I earned that merit badge with blood sweat, and copious tears.  Imagine how awkward it is for me to learn that by just being me and doing what comes naturally it is making others uncomfortable.  That they are so uncomfortable with me in fact that they must revert to teenage girl tactics to bring me down a notch.  It’s incredibly unfortunate and frankly, doesn’t work.  See, I’ve been amongst the most ruthless of sharks for way to long to be phased by snippy comments, stupid IM’s, or rude emails.  I’ve taken worse from way better.

The problem is thus:  I make them uncomfortable by being who I am and achieving excellence which shines a light a little too powerfully on those around me and a lot of people are not ready to be so fully in the spotlight.  In this glare they see themselves maybe for the first time in real detail.  They cope by demanding me to be less and to conform to their standards so as not to feel uncomfortable anymore.  I can not be less even if I tried.  My own drum beat is so overpowering that I just can’t hear yours.   Looking further at it, I have to admit that it’s a little infuriating that someone would try to make me less of who I am because they have not evolved enough in life to be confident in who they are.  Me being me and them being them doesn’t make either of us less.  How am I the only one to see that?

So yeah, I’ve been dealing with that and just trying to negotiate a peace where I am doing my thing, working my ass off at it, and hopefully not making them feel bad about themselves in the process.

Then Maggie and her wonderful finance` came over and we chatted for  like 8 hours straight.  Though I have numerous wonderful successful friends this, I have to admit, was the first time I was a little overwhelmed by a persons success.  See, I’ve been around people who make money, people who make ridiculous unheard of amounts of money, and it doesn’t phase me.  “Oh, that Bently is yours? Good for you.”  Money can be power, and money can buy security, but money can’t buy a lot of things.  Mr. Fiance` started out by telling us that he used to work for NASA.  Yep.  At 27 years old this man is probably going to reach for 6 or 7 brass rings I couldn’t even imagine.  He now works for Boeing as an Aeronautical Engineer.  Seriously.  This is the first time I have been a little intimidated by how awesome a person was.  Anyone can make money, not everyone can be a fucking badass Aeronautical Engineer.  It totally helped that he was completely awesome, reminded me of my Mr, and almost glowed when he looked at my friend Maggie.  Seriously, kudos to you chica, nice catch

After he left though I thought about how I felt.  Yeah, I was seriously impressed (which doesn’t happen often), but what else did I feel?  Then I realized, that I probably felt more badass for meeting him (and being a little intimidated of his accomplishments) than anything else.  His accomplishments, knowledge, and awesomeness didn’t make me any less in the least.  I’d never be able to do his job but it doesn’t make me less of a person or any less accomplished in my life.  I believe this should probably be a normal reaction and thus the reaction I’ve received for my own awesomeness isn’t normal, valid, or warranted.  With this knowledge in hand I’m going to continue to follow the advice of my lovely friends and family, and keep doing what I do.  There’s no need for me to make myself less to make other people more comfortable.  It’s not like I’m wearing a flashing neon sign on my back that rotates between flashing “I’M AWESOME” and “YOU OBVIOUSLY SUCK!”  My own awesomeness doesn’t make anyone elses’ less so.

It really makes me remember my Unitarian Principles and reminds me to practice them even if others don’t.

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

We all have those moments though we might not realize them at the time when we change our own lives.  We change our attitudes about things, we change our habits and we become the people we are today.  This year has been an amazing year for me.  It has been one of the toughest and most rewarding years of my life.  This year I became a farmer.  I’m not really sure how it happened but I know that it probably started with the sheep our friends Tom & Mette enabled us with.  Then it was chickens and turkeys and geese and ducks and then goats.  Ah goats how I love you. Anyone who does not love a goat is either A. Not ever met a goat, B. had to do all the goat chores when growing up with goats, or C. a complete psychopath.

Anyway, to say that my life changed this year is like saying that Noah went out for a 3 hour cruise.  My life is a million and ten ways different than it was when I left California.  Some of it is regional (I now own a proper rain coat and wear socks and real shoes) and some of it is just because I am finally free to be as I want to be.  Some of the ways I have changed are because I just had to.  I had to or else I would end up a pile of sniveling crying trembling mass of wife that was no good to anyone.  Why would this have happened you ask?  Turkeys.  Turkeys were almost the undoing of me.  Don’t laugh, I’m being serious (ok you can laugh a little because it’s pretty ridiculous).

See, I’m kind of a control freak.  This is where the people that know me really well are laughing because they know I am an absolute control freak.  Not only am I a control freak but I’m recovering from “Everything is a huge deal!!!!” syndrome.  My best friend Shawna will tell you it’s because I had very little control about anything growing up and that everything (OMFG did you touch the STEREO?!!!) was a BIG deal.  (I’m sorry mom, it was.)  My cousin Rebecca will tell you that marrying the Mr who is so laid back that if the apocalypse came he’d tell everyone to stop freaking out and just relax is sort of deprograming.  I think she’s right, he makes me a better person not because he sets out to change who I am but because he allows me to adjust my attitude gently and with support. Sometimes he will look at me though and shake his head before saying, “I just don’t get why you are freaking out!” and you know what?  I don’t know why either.  This year has been a lot of those kind of instances.  And I’ve taken them all on a case by case basis as I’ve decided what I wanted to do with them.

One instance was my need to control absolutely everything.  I let the turkeys be free range but of course, being me, I had RESTRICTIONS on their free rangability.  I know, it’s a sickness.  I didn’t even realize this was silly or stupid I just knew where I wanted my turkeys and what I did NOT want them to do.  You see where this is going right?  Yeah.  So my turkeys, 8 in total at the time, were fine the first few days.  They wandered around the big fenced in pasture at the back of the property with the goats and did their turkey business.  Then one of those bastards got the idea to jump up on the fence that separated my backyard from the pasture.  Tank had a blast scaring them off the fence and I urged him on.  How dare those turkeys think they are allowed on my fence?!

Then the turkeys hopped over the fence into the yard…with the dog.  There were multiple turkey chases every day as I herded them out of the yard.  Tank did pull out a few feathers here and there but no turkey was actually hurt.  Did it matter that everything ended up being ok? No.  It raised my stress level every time they did it.  Then the damn turkeys went on a walk about.  They’d hop the fence into my side pastures and wander around the property as if they could do anything they wanted to! The NERVE!  I didn’t have these pastures fenced and was CERTAIN something bad would happen.  (Because obviously fencing had totally kept them in right?)  So yeah.  I’d spend my days stopping everything I was doing to herd the turkeys back to where I wanted them.  I’d cry over it, I’d scream over it, I’d throw sad hissy fits I’m so glad no one witnessed.  I once even kicked a turkey and then felt really bad about it.

It was then that the Mr – who had up until this point ignored my self imposed plight and let me be as crazy as I needed to be – finally spoke up.  “Preita,” he said as calmly as he could when I was being super nutso, “why does it matter?  They always come back at night and if they don’t it was only $10.”

People.  My husband is the buddha sometimes I swear.  He was right and even in my crazed addled state I knew it.  The fact was, it didn’t matter.  It didn’t matter at all!  Why was I driving myself insane over something that DID NOT MATTER?  Because I had set self imposed rules for my animals and was upset when they did not follow them.  People, I had rules for my turkeys as if they’d ever understand them!  At that point I took a deep breath and agreed with him, it did not matter what the turkeys did.  I was not going to be insane over this anymore.  I decided at that moment to let it go, to let the turkeys be as the turkeys would be and just take a step back.  You know what happened?  Nothing.  They turkeys wandered everywhere they wanted to and at night, they came to the barn ready to go in at night.  The only thing that happened is that I was less stressed out, I had more time for doing things that were important to me with out the constant turkey interruptions and I was happier.  Go figure.

Months later when my in-laws visited I think this change in attitude perplexed my father in law – a man I look up to very much.  We were on the patio and he was smoking a cigar when a turkey started screeching.  He looked at me and frowned before saying, “Turkey’s on the barn.”  I looked up and noticed that one of the hens was indeed on the top of the barn.  “Yup,” I replied going back to knitting.  “Do you think it can get down?” he asked.  “Probably since it was able to get up there.”  “Are you going to do anything?” he pushed.  “Nope,” I answered.  Thirty minutes later the turkey was off the barn and they were on the roof of my house, “Turkey’s on the roof,” my father in law said.  “Yup, they do that” I replied as I continued to knit.  He looked at me and smiled.  I think it was the first time he’d seen me just really let it go, to not jump up and have a freak out.

I’ve tried to use this new found outlook in other areas in my life.  I call it my F*ck It motto.  If it doesn’t work, F*ck It and move on.  I am a very stubborn person so it’s hard for me to just move on sometimes but I’ve gotten better.  When something just won’t work I force myself to stop, walk away and do something else.  Chances are when I try it again with a level head it works just fine.  I have a new outlook on life and a little less stress all thanks to my amazing Mr and a bunch of willful turkeys.  Who thought that you could be taught a lesson by an animal with the brain the size of a walnut?

Happy New Year!  (BTW I have goat pictures to follow this post!)

At least that’s how I used to be.  I think that’s how  a  lot of knitters and blog readers have been in the past.  See I’m a commenter, I like to make comments on posts I like, projects I like, designs I think are perfection…You get the point.  I let people know how I feel when I feel it without fail.  That said, I do not – ever – leave hate mail.  If the blog I read has content I don’t enjoy or is different than what I believe in I just don’t read that post.  If the the content I dislike takes over the content I do I will stop reading.  No biggie right?

Well my blog list to read daily became long and ungainly.  If not for Google Reader I’d never know what half my blogs were up to.  Then something occurred to me.  I was commenting away and getting no response.  Now I don’t expect every comment to warrant a response but never getting one from a blog I’ve been following for 4 years?  That seems a little…rude.  If you comment here more than once chances are I’ve replied to you at least once.  I do this because I like to chat with my readers.  I find interesting people through my blog.  I find fellow hobby farmers, real farmers, shepherds, sheep lovers, knitters, fiber addict, spinners, crafters, photography lovers and random passer-by’s.  I appreciate all the people who stop by here daily.  I appreciate the fact that people take the time to comment.

So when I realized I was nothing more than another comment that may or may not have been read on a blog by someone much more popular than I will ever hope to be I stopped commenting.  Then I stopped reading, then I unsubscribed to them completely.  Frankly I don’t miss them either.  I don’t buy into the “I’m too busy to reply to comments”.  I think it’s rude, tasteless, and low class.  I understand that as a blog it is self-absorbed thing.  This blog is all about me and my interests but some other people find it interesting periodically too. 

Here’s the deal.  If you don’t respond to comments I think you should just close off commenting on your blog and move on.  It stops you from being a jerk.  This doesn’t just stop at blogs.  On Ravelry (the knitting social network) you can comment on people’s projects and their designs.  Not responding to them is also quite rude.  Even the biggest designers only get a handful of comments.  They must read them but then what…trash them?  They don’t have to know me, they don’t have to care about anyone but I don’t get how this behavior still endears them to their fans?  I have actually stopped reading blogs and buying designs from designers for this exact reason.  The “buy my pattern but don’t talk to me” isn’t I feel in the spirit of our community.  Maybe I’m just picky.  Maybe I expect things I shouldn’t.  Maybe I’m not popular enough, not New England enough, not New York enough, not skinny enough or funky enough or whimsical enough. 

I’ve been thinking about this blog for a long time, how to put into words what it conveys when you don’t reply to comments.  I believe that there is always time for manners and being polite.  Even when I’m stressed at the grocery store and want nothing more than to get out of there I will be polite to everyone around me (even when the cashier can’t figure out the code for kale).   Maybe I just wish that everyone would take a little look at themselves and realize that the internet is not as nameless, faceless, or rude as we might think.