Bossy: given to ordering people about; overly authoritative; domineering. (Dictionary.com)

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I have been Miss Bossypants lately. I don’t like it because I never feel good after the fact. There is a brief moment of power, of course, followed by a deflation. I can’t stand it when someone tells me what to do. Why would I do that to someone else?

When I was a child, the youngest of three sisters, and the youngest cousin in town, everyone seemed to boss me around, telling me my faults: stop being angry, stop following people around, get lost. No one wanted to play with me. I was the cousin that had no counter part, no playmate. My attention-seeking behavior ostracized me even more. I was miserable.

Then I discovered bossing underlings around was kind of fun. So I became a teacher. Teachers can be bossy just because they are teachers. “Do this, stop talking, leave the classroom, we will do this my way because I say so.”

Eventually I became an authority in my own mind about how one should live, how to be successful, how to get out there and make it happen. I found my joie de vivre. Permit me a little nostalgia.

For God’s sakes…

…go back to school, get a hair cut, use mouth wash, black stockings do not go with a red dress, stand up for yourself, set some boundaries, get a job, stop the incessant video games, get some medical advice, go for counselling, stop complaining and do something about your miserable life, get your finances in order, spend less than you make, try alternative health care, make your adult children pay rent, kindness is better than wit, stop slouching, pick up your feet when you walk, slap a smile on your face, binge drinking is stupid and suggests a bigger problem, toss the cigarettes, regular marijuana use kills brain cells, stop complaining, get a life, you need to take a shower, stop your whining…

I ask the ethers, “What is Miss Bossypants all about?” “Where is this judgment thing coming from?” “Why do I think I have the solution? ” I hear the collective retort of all the recipients of my bossy diatribes and I don’t like it much.

Thank you Miss Bossy Pants for telling me what to do because I would never have figured that out myself. You know more than I do about who I am, how to behave, how to get my life in order. If I do what you tell me to do I will no longer be a disappointment to you. I will never find my own truth. Just yours.

 OUCH!

Miss Bossypants dives under a rock.

She will emerge in the spring… maybe.