We ran away to the mountains this past weekend.  I like to imagine living here, where this photo was taken.  It's an old homestead and it's so peaceful there.  Except life is never really peaceful for long.

I work with a woman who is passive-aggressive.  She drives me crazy because I am like her in some  ways.  I cannot change her, I cannot even reason with her.  Dealing with her terrifies me, my heart pounds, my palms sweat.  She does not like me and anything I do will not make this any worse than it already is, so what's the problem?

The real problem is that I dislike her because of what she represents to me, my own worst nasty bits.  The judging, critical, dogmatic, passive-aggressive bits that I would like to pretend don't exist.  Except they do and because she makes me look at myself and see these nasty bits within, I dislike her.  I feel like a bitch around her and I probably am to her.  

But there is another side to this.  She is passive-aggressive and by working with her daily I can see how destructive passive-aggressive behavior is.  She is a chance for me to change how I behave.  She is a constant reminder to do better, to practice speaking up assertively, to tell others what I need and what I want.  

Change is so hard.  It's scary and I hate scary.  I like nice, I prefer nice.  Conflict makes me very anxious, it reminds me of growing up, it reminds me of being a little girl and being scared because my dad was yelling and I didn't know why.  Which makes me cry.  

So I need to be scared and keep going.  I'm not a child anymore, I can chose to behave differently.  I want to behave differently.