Miss Bossypants

Last week on Wednesday night, I drove across the Utah/Idaho border with summer air streaming through my hair from the open window. Sorry to say, the window was not rolled down for my enjoyment. It was stuck down.

As I stopped in a small border town at one of my last stops to fill my tank before reaching Logan, I thought about the course my day had taken. It certainly did not go exactly as planned.

Earlier that day, I made the drive to my parents' house to make a video with my siblings. I mainly wanted to dink around with my new video camera, and I figured, "Heck, this is why the good Lord blessed me with siblings. So I can make them part of my experiments." So we planned on creating a simple summer-themed video. Except it didn't end up being so simple since I'm awesome at making things complicated. Any ways, I directed and my siblings were the actors.

And guess what? My siblings are not professional actors. Can you believe that? I ended up being so frustrated when they wouldn't do something the way I had it in my head. We ended up shooting each scene multiple and multiple times until I felt partially satisfied. Very quickly, something that started out as a fun afternoon activity with the sibs turned into me being Miss Bossypants.

"Jace, ride your long board down the hill just one more time. And can you give me more emotion this time?"

"Lexi, don't smile. You are supposed to be serious right now."

"Chloe, fetch me a soda." (This last one didn't actually happen)

A few things about me I try to hide. . .

1. I am a perfectionist at times.

 Not all the time. I am not one of those over-the-top perfectionists who needs everything planned out and organized. I'm actually not very organized at all. But when I get an idea in my head of how I want something to be, it better be just like it is in my head or better. Or else I freak out. My ideas are my babies. And no one wants ugly babies.

2. I have a bossy personality.

It's true. I used to be lots worse. It's something I really feel like I've learned to control and I think I've overcome it a lot. When I was a child, I was horrible. I partially blame it on being the oldest child and grandchild. I was the big kid, so naturally, I was in charge. I'm sure my little brother, Jace, still has horrid memories of me demanding him to put one of my two tutus on and dance with me in our front room. And you can bet I yelled at him if he didn't do all the dance moves I made up correctly. As my childhood passed, and I grew into adolescence, I remained bossy, but a little less so. In high school, I spent time on the basketball court telling teammates where to go and what to do, and I spent time in student council handing out assignments and expecting them to be done correctly. Then one day during my senior year, I decided I wanted to work on chilling out a little and letting things be.

I remember the day clearly. We had been planning our Fear Factor assembly for the month of October. I served as Student Body President my senior year, so I was kind of in charge. Well, the morning of the assembly, I was trying to get all my ducks in a row (that's such a weird saying) and making sure everything was ready to go. I was running around like a mad woman setting up the sound system, checking on our giant tub of jello that students would be digging through, just those kinds of things. And I started getting really nervous about the assembly, like I didn't feel like everything was ready. No one else was stressing like me though. Since everything was ready to go, they were taking it easy. This angered me, made me lose my temper, and I started yelling out demands and asking them if they even cared that the assembly was in a couple hours. They looked at me like I was a psycho, and then did as they were told. That's when I took a step back and said, "Man, I can be a bossy lunatic sometimes. People don't like bossy lunatics." So I apologized to everyone for being a bossy lunatic and tried my best to put my bossypants away, in the back of a drawer. Now I don't take control in groups, unless I must. I try taking assignments from others instead of giving them. I try to keep my mouth shut and go with the flow. And usually my trying succeeds.

 But I still fall into my old ways at times. Sometimes I take those bossypants out of that dark drawer and I put them back on, tightly around my waist. It usually happens when I am under stress, and it usually happens with people I know have to still love me even after I boss them around. In the case of last week, it was my siblings.

It started out all fun with flips on the trampoline and ended with me flipping out. Jace ran into one of his friends while we were shooting at the park. This resulted in him wandering off with the said friend leaving me with only two sister actresses. So I bossed them around. Then Lexi wandered off to her friend's house. So I bossed Chloe around. Then my camera battery died. So I bossed Chloe around some more. Then I was running late to a bridal shower and couldn't find Lexi and Jace. So I bossed Chloe around some more.

Then on the ride home, me with bossy lunatic anger flashing in my eyes, Chloe broke into tears saying, "Kelsey is being mean." While I listened to Chloe's muffled sobs from the back seat, I watched as Lexi rolled the front passenger seat all the way down. Then I snapped at her saying that window gets stuck. And it did. It did get stuck. And for the life of me, it wouldn't roll back up.

I guess that's what I get for being bossy. A stuck window. And as I drove the rest of the way home on Wednesday night after filling my gas tank, I decided I better apologize to my siblings. Then I watched as pesky bugs flew through my open window and clustered around the several emergency warnings which are always lit up (my van has had a hard life, guys). They bounced about the EMERGENCY BREAK light, the CHECK ENGINE light, and the battery light as if they were at a dance party and I just let out a laugh. I laughed that my window was stuck down, I laughed that mosquitoes were turning the dashboard of my van into their own private club, and I laughed because I can be so bossy. It just all suddenly hit me as funny.  

It's time to start working on my flaws again. One of those flaws being bossiness under stress. Time to develop more patience and acceptance here. But hey, things could always be worse. At least I don't make Jace wear a tutu anymore.