Why Do You Care

This has been a particularly bad week.  My “boo boo” arm has been hurting more and I’m even caving into the ouchies enough to take tramadol for it.  I’m pretty sure all Yoga managed to do yesterday was aggravate it more.  That is adding to stress.  Squirrel Girl has been having issues with her meds for bi-polar and that is adding to the stress.  We can’t quite figure out why she is having growing kidney stones and protein in her urine.  That is adding to the stress.
So This morning I made a pit stop in the Labyrinth for some quiet time.  It helps.
Added to the stress of this week has been cube moves for about four dozen people at work (including me).  As usual with everything that happens to our “team” there was a LOT of drama surrounding the move.  Great.  Until this move I hadn’t realized JUST how much the drama has been getting to me. The move has made it painfully (almost literally painfully) obvious and I really don’t know what to do about it.
What am I talking about?  Examples…
Why does anyone care what my cube looks like.  I have a desk with stuff on it.  Some of it is paperwork I’m working on.  Some of it is coffee cup, candies (no one seems to object to my having that where they can snarf it up) and a water bottle… some of it is pictures of my family and some of it is just things that I find entertaining (my potato heads for example).  If my ‘stuff’ doesn’t constitute clutter or in any way infringe on your ability to get your work done, why do you INSIST on bitching about it.  I don’t complain that you obviously don’t care at all about your family because you have no pictures of them on your desk.  I don’t whine about how obsessively you clean your desk and sanitize everything in sight.  Why do you care?  Just don’t freaking look at it if you don’t like it.  Stop making fun of me.  It’s funny, the people who were actually where the new cubes are made a point of coming over to talk to me because I brought some much-needed color and whimsy to this end of the floor.
I have a small brass bell on my key ring.  I bought it because my beautiful, amazing daughter said “mother, you wouldn’t”.  That is an open invitation if I ever heard it.  I KEEP it because I enjoy the sound.  I like having music with me wherever I go.  I enjoy the sound of fairy bells and I love to remember the day at the Texas Renaissance Festival that I bought the bell (walking around and laughing in the autumn sunshine with my family).  I have come close several times to getting rid of it because it seems to irritate everyone.  Or maybe it just gives everyone something else to make fun of me for.  Either way, sometimes it just gets old.  My Rheumy’s PA assures me that it is wonderful and that if people can’t put up with the 30 seconds they have to listen to it at any given time, then they have a serious problem.  But he isn’t the one who is getting laughed at and made fun of.
This morning I stayed extra long in the Labyrinth because I didn’t want to come into work crying.  I am considering cleaning everything out of my cube so I will be just like everyone else and no one will have to deal with the fact that I’m not.  I’m tired of the fact that being me is nothing more than grist for the mill and I’m just sick of worrying about what everyone else is going to say about anything I do.
Why do you care?
I don’t make fun of you.
Why do you feel it necessary to make me the butt of all of the snotty remarks?  And why is it so easy to pull everyone else into the fray.  (he he he… lets dump on the different one… the one who is proud of being different… lets see if we can kick the differences out of her) How do I fix it?  HR?  Oh yeah… that does wonders.  All I get there are snotty faces and lies about trying to do something to fix it.
Why do you care that I’m okay with being different?
Why do you care that I’m not just like you?
Why do you care that I’m passionate about what matters to me but that I try to not drag you unwillingly into my drama?
Why do you care?
And why do I care that you care?