We Had A Visit From Old Lisa

These days I am even keeled, easy to get along with and patient. I have worked hard to cultivate a better version of myself. This is not who I have always been. As you may know I was born in NJ and lived most of my life in CT, so if I told you that once upon a time, I had an East Coast Attitude you probably would not be surprised?

When I googled “East Coast Attitude” 

The description in 2 words was “Temperamental and Uninhibited,” and by that they meant not afraid to speak your mind and not really care what others think about it.

In case you were wondering the 2 words used to describe Midwesterners (what I am now) are Agreeable, and Conscientious

That version of Lisa found herself fuming and becoming visibly irritated when she was in the checkout line at the grocery store, if someone could not find their wallet, was fumbling to write a check or if they had forgotten something and wanted to leave the line to go and get it. OMG I was beside myself. It really was incredible looking back.

There is one story that my husband refers to more often than I would like – in our early dating years, my husband, his kids, his sister and her family and I all went to West Virginia on a ski trip. One morning the 9 of them were headed to the slopes, I am not a skier, so I was staying behind, but wanted to have snacks and dinner ready when they all arrived home after a long day on the slopes. We agreed that they should be home by 5:30, my husband knew all too well that if they were late, I would probably not be a happy person; this was old Lisa. When 5:30 rolled around, they were not home. Cellphone service was not available in this area so they were not able to let me know they would be late. I was ready and waiting… and no one came home. One of the kids had decided to take an extra trip down the slopes.

When they arrived home, over an hour later than agreed, I was unable to contain my anger and frustration. I was short with everyone, banging things around and not being a very pretty version of myself.

That ski trip was about 20 years ago.

These days when my husband works late and misses dinner or decides he does not want to eat what I made, sometimes I can be a little perturbed but most of the time I just brush it off, it’s not really a big deal. You can mess around all you want in the checkout line; I have all the time in the world. Through meditation and working on aspects of myself that did not serve me I have become a better, calmer version of myself.

Then 2 weeks ago. Old Lisa showed up out of the blue.

We have 2 businesses under our roof, and I do the payroll for both. Which I absolutely hate. I hate it because it is messing with other people’s money. And I do not want to make any mistakes.

The shop employees must clock in and out. A few months after I started doing payroll, I created a form to be used if you need a vacation day, if you mess up a punch in or out and for the boss, my husband, to use if he hires someone new or gives someone a raise. This form is right above the time clock and serves the purpose of making everything easy for everyone. As it says on the form there are NO EXCEPTIONS, if you mess up your time clock I am not going to hunt you down and see what happened.

A few months ago, we hired a new employee. He had to get used to punching in and out, day after day I found exception forms slipped under my door. Then he got the hang of it and for a few months there were no exception forms from Josh.

Then I went to do payroll last week and Josh’s punches showed 3 errors in the previous week. Yet, there had not been any exception forms under my door.

My blood pressure went up, if this had been someone else, I would have just shorted their check. My rules are the rules at the same time, I felt bad and did not want to short Josh’s check, I just lost my mind, bitching at my husband, “what is wrong with him?”  “Why did he not fill out the form” “there are no exceptions.”  I demanded that Glenn (husband/boss) go out and tell him to fill out the exception forms honestly, because I was so mad I could not see straight. Instead of having Josh submit the forms, Glenn had poor little Josh come to my office. I was like “you do know that if John (my least favorite employee, who has since been fired) had messed up his punches like this I would not be asking him what happened I would have just shorted his check 24 hours due to the errors and no exception forms.”  This version of Lisa scares my husband and frankly everyone who works there, I am pretty sure Josh will not let this happen again.

While this was all happening, I was aware of how awful my body felt but I felt unable to get a grip on myself. Like I was freaking out and sort of out of control. It was an old, familiar feeling.

It was not until 2 days later that I realized that Old Lisa had shown up. I replayed how awful it felt to be that excited, angry, and worked up.

How do I handle this or reconcile it within myself? The same way I would ask a client to handle this situation, notice what happened, how it felt and maybe even what triggered the loss of control. Honestly, I like rules and when people blatantly do not follow them, I really need to take a breath, this time I forgot my own rule.

Old Lisa is not who I ever want to be again. So, I take note, give myself some grace and do better next time.

P.S. I am still so shocked that that version of me came out….