Rebel Yell

I’m sure it will come as no surprise to any of you to learn that I have an extremely well-developed inner rebel. But the weird thing about her is the the things she chooses to rebel against.

For example, I will happily dump every single trash can in our house, tie up the garbage bags, and deposit them outside the kitchen door in the garage. But I absolutely refuse to take those same garbage bags and place them in the big trash can that we take to the curb every Tuesday. I just now went outside and checked, and it is exactly 24 extra steps from the kitchen doorstep to the trash cans. I refuse to walk 24 extra steps because I believe that in doing so, I am winning some kind of moral victory. (Please know that I never said any of this is rational.)

Fortunately I am married to a man who is afflicted with this same issue. But where my rebellion is up front and in your face his is more passive, so you don’t actually realize what’s going on until you notice for the 2 bazillionth time in a row that, Under No Circumstances Whatsoever will he retrieve clean towels from the linen closet and hang them on the hooks in the bathroom.

I’m not really sure what this proves other than the fact that if, as I am, you are the firstborn child of 2 firstborn parents, married to another firstborn child of a  firstborn parent, that there will occasionally be moments in your marriage when you both act like rams who are continually smashing into one another, horns locked in mortal combat. Except that you’re not fighting for anything important, like a mate. You’re just fighting to defend your right to be stubborn about really stupid stuff.

My inner rebel also showed up A Lot in my work life, and I’m sure you can imagine just how much my employers enjoyed that. It did not matter what rule they made; I was an expert in finding a way to react with moral outrage and righteous indignation, thus allowing me to feel totally justified in completely ignoring said rule.

However now that I’m in my 30’s I’ve been thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could try to do things a little differently. And so for the last 7 months I have been taking a class to actually become certified at this profession of being a Life Coach. And that is also why I have been absent from my blog for the last week. This Tuesday was our 2 1/2 hour final oral exam, and while I do excel at totally-making-things-up-as-I-go-along and pulling-things-out-of-my-ass-at-the-last-minute, I thought that perhaps I should actually prepare for this exam, so as not do undo all my hard work of the last 7 months (and the 4 months before that).

And so I am very happy to report that I successfully managed my inner rebel, and now I am officially a Certified Life Coach.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming of humorously commenting on all of the goofy contrasts that we, personally experience in life. (And thankfully, there are lots.)