The Shoulda Syndrome

Because my mind isn’t cluttered with work and kids, money worries and keeping up with technology (though it should), I find myself now spending a lot of time reflecting on my past. Not that I want to. It’s just that various people and situations pop into my head. Sometimes I smile at the memory, sometimes I absolutely cringe.

I’ve made some dumb mistakes which, fortunately, did not ruin my life or got me murdered -- and very well could have, so I’ve few regrets.

About the only real regret I have is that I wasn’t more honest with people. Not in the sense of lying – I’m a terrible liar, but more in the sense of  holding back, not being completely honest, shading the truth -- mostly in an effort to not be confrontational or hurt someone else’s feelings at the expense of my own.

I think it was about a week and a half ago, just about the time I decided to go over complex management’s head and take the A/C issue to Corporate Boss Lady, that I decided my problem is I’m too nice and that I need to be meaner, that I should have done this instead of that.

To that goal of being a meaner me, I’ve posted a review on Yelp three times in one week.

I didn’t even know I had an account on Yelp until, in November 2016 when, after responding to a Dealer Satisfaction Survey, I hit submit and the review rolled over into Yelp … with an old photo of me.

Having outed myself, as a somewhat dissatisfied customer, I figured I’d have to wear a disguise next time I took the car in for servicing, and then I forgot all about Yelp until that very bad customer service delivery experience with Big Box and remembered my vow to no longer be nice.

I yelped them.

Then yesterday, Costco’s Express Delivery Service was so outstanding the afternoon before, that I went online and praised the service on Yelp.

Since I was at it, that very bad customer service experience at the credit union came to mind so, though it’s weeks later, I yelped them as well.

The beast in me is loose.

On tap for today is putting the finishing touches on my latest Creative Memory Scrapbook, which I titled “Oh Snap”.

I was very much behind, having stopped scrapbooking in 2015 because Creative Memories had gone bankrupt a few years previous, thus producing no more page refills and protective covers. I could still find some product on eBay, at an increased price but, as it was getting harder and harder to even find product there and reluctant to go to a different system, I just stopped. I still took photos, had them developed and left it at that.

It was the photos taken during the Eclipse that jump started my interest in scrapbooking again and, when I went online looking for product, lo and behold Creative Memories was back … with product galore.

So the last month has been catching up with the 2015/2016 (and some 2017) photos, thwarted only by lack of access to my notes and journaling printouts when the laptop was in the shop.

All caught up, now I just have to think of a title for the new book that begins with the Eclipse and Zumba photos. That to me is the hardest part of scrapbooking … coming up with an idea for the Title Page.

Since the world did not end on the 23rd, as Theorists had predicted, I'm thinking about "Still Here" as a title ... seriously.