Righting a Couple of Wrongs

I believe that most people who know me personally would probably say that I am a nice guy. I mean, I, of course, have my bad days and moments and have been known to be a tad dickish at times, especially when provoked (see Attack of the Man-hating Woman). But in general, I think that I have had a lifetime of pretty good behavior.

As I have referenced several times in this blog, in social media and personal communications, this past year has been rough. So rough that, in fact, I believe that it has been the worst year of my life, surpassing years when my father died, when I found out that my son had cancer, and when I had a mild heart attack.

I've never been one to get depressed beyond the normal/reasonable stage, but recently, I had been wondering if I had been seriously depressed during this past year. Being a clinician, I had already thought that, although I was not overly depressed, the stress I was under was enormous, causing me to think, say and do some things that I would not normally have done. I saw it was time to right a couple of wrongs I had done to other people.

I have a colleague with whom I have sometimes gotten along with, sometimes not. I was in a small meeting with her and our boss when my frustration with work and life in general got the better of me, and I ripped into her. After some time had passed, I sent her an apology email. As you might guess, I got no response. I finally got a chance to talk with her face-to-face last week and grovel in person. After about an hour-long talk about us, our relationship and work, I felt like we were about as good as we were going to get. I was a little disappointed that she refused my invitation to smack me in the face. It probably would have made both of us feel better.

Well, that was one down. However, I felt like I owed at least one more person an apology. It might surprise you who I owe that to.

On my last trip to Las Vegas in January, I was pretty much a dick to none other than Tony Bigcharles, whom I have often accused of being a shitty friend. Well, being frustrated with life in general and then finding out that, once home and back at work, I would have to deal with a brand new time-consuming and crappy issue with an employee, I treated Tony in pretty much the way I have called him out for in the past. So, for once, the shoe is on the other foot.

So Tony, my apologies for blowing off your calls and texts when you were trying to get us to play some poker at the Nugget. Friends shouldn't treat other friends like that. Period.

Things have been straightening out in my life, and life will continue to get better in the weeks ahead. Dang -- it looks like the evening will be pretty nice tonight.

Thanks for reading!