Saying It

I had a conversation with my boss yesterday. Well, not so much a conversation as a question. Well, okay, less ask and more acquiesence. She said, "do you have any time to watch a presentation from a potential teacher?" and while my brain said "I have no life and I want to break this $%##*&@ phone," my mouth agreed to spend an extra half-hour at work tonight. My first tutorial is at 10 am. Now I'm not home for good until 9 pm.

Why did I do that?

Why did I schedule any of it in the first place?

I'm just a Bunny who can't say, "no," that's why. Not to a favor, not to "I have no one else I trust" - even if I were falling down a flight of stairs I'd probably agree to try to reset the banister as long as someone offered me a down-on-her-luck story. Y'know what that makes me?

A nice person.

Eeooo, gross. I've worked so hard on my crusty outer skin, too. I aspire to be a curmudgeon yet I persist in being a marshmallow. What's wrong with me? Why can't I just growl and huff and scare people off like the Big Lug does? Nobody asks him to do anything they don't think he'll do. Nobody can fool him with a sad tale. Well, most people can't. Well, people he doesn't like can't.

But me ... well, I'll say "yes" to the nastiest, meanest, most unreasonable customer in the world because maybe - maybe - I can turn that frown upside down. This morning, before I even left for my first student, I spent twenty minutes I didn't have speaking with a parent who scheduled four remaining tutorials for September. I scrambled in here to edit this posting (then head back to work), and found a message that she wanted to reschedule all of them, for days I'd told her I didn't have open (just this morning!) and times I never mentioned. I called her back, reminded her of this, and she said, "well, he can't do weeknights anyway," then proceeded to take my Saturdays from me. What did I do? Comisserated with her about the vagarities of teenagers' schedules with a solemn, "Yes, I remember," and pencilled him in.

I remember squat. I told my kids early on I wouldn't be their full-time chauffeur, that they'd have to choose one activity, and ride share more often than not. Not that I actually stuck to that, of course ... but the thought was there. Yet truly they never took advantage when I did say "yes" - they never made me into the mom who had no life of her own because her kids' schedules were so insane.

Nowadays, though, I can't say "no" to anybody. I want to speak softly and carry a big stick, but the club I wield turns out to be made of peppermint.

Ah, well, it could be worse. Everything I do, I do for love, and that seems to come back a hundredfold (even when I'm cranky about it), whether it's a request from my kids, my grands, or crazy parents - who refer other unreasonable parents, who somehow always have the most wonderful and reasonable children, by the way. Suddenly I have more students than I can handle, and all because I said, "yes" to them.

I do need to learn to say "no" to my work schedule, say "yes" more often to myself.

But not today. I have too much to do.