Insensitive

Anyone old like me might remember the song “Insensitive” that was performed by Jann Arden and released in 1994. If you don’t remember it, I borrowed this link from Youtube so you could watch it. Have at it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nrGWwHalCU

I loved this song. It just so happened that my divorce coincided with the endless playing of this song on the radio. I wasn’t yet in that dark place of the break up when I related every song, every nuance, every phone call to my relationship status. I just loved this song and would belt it out every time it came on the radio, despite the fact that I sound like a castrated frog when I’m singing.

So I’m going through this shitty break-up and my husband decides one random Sunday that he wants to play “happy husband” so we took a road trip to a place I no longer even remember. The song came on the radio. Now, I don’t sing in front of anyone, so I hummed along and that ass turned to me and said, “Doesn’t this song bother you now?” Oh, you mean this song should bother me because the first lines are, “How do you cool your lips after a summer’s kiss?” and you got caught skulking around with your hoebag coworker? No, not in the least, I love this song and you can’t ruin it for me.

Fast forward nearly twenty years, and I am divorced and have been remarried for a long fucking time. And that “Insensitive” song? I still love it. It’s even one of the first songs I downloaded onto my first iPod. I don’t ever think of that idiot first husband when I hear that song. Instead, I remember ever damn time someone has accused me of being too sensitive and I wonder how I can train myself to be insensitive…

I had a very rough day on Sunday. In fact, I was so weird I felt like I was being secretly taped for an episode of Punk’d or something. I won’t go into specifics here, but I had been providing a lot of help to my sick friend and was starting to feel like nothing I did was good enough. Everything that I had done over the prior three days was picked apart. If had been only my sick friend, I would have overlooked it and blamed it on her “Incredible Hulk Mean Pills,” i.e., her post-surgery pain medication. However, her husband jumped all over me as well.

The final straw was when they started in on Spice. Now, I have been around their kids a lot and I never, ever thrash on their behavior. If my friends are present, they can discipline their own kids and handle things as they see fit. It’s not my business. If parents are not present and kids misbehave in my care, I try to handle it on my own and say, “Things could have been better” if the parents ask how the kids were when we return.

I realize that I am more sensitive than not, but picking on someone’s kid brings out the Mama Bear in me and every single mother I know. Don’t do it, it’s just not cool. Sure there’s a time and place when a kid needs to be ratted out, but really? Tattling out my kid because she only had three bites of pizza for lunch and then asked for dessert? Did you try saying no and telling her she needed to finish the pizza? If we are going to start nit-picking every move my kid makes, you bet your ass I’ll start calling your kids out as well.

I try very hard to be sensitive to other people’s feelings. I don’t make negative comments about their spouse, children, house, occupation, anything. Our lives perfectly reflect the choices we’ve made on our own. Your choices are no business of mine. So I’m appalled when confronted with someone who sets out to tear people down. And making rude comments under the guise of humor is bullshit too. Here’s a rule people: if you have to say, “I was just kidding” after teasing someone, you know good and damn well that the person you just spoke to didn’t think your comment was funny. In fact, you most likely hurt someone’s feelings. And guess what? Once a comment is said out loud, there aren’t any taksie backsies!!

Oh, there I go being OVERsensitive again, because that’s what I’m told when I mention that I don’t think put-downs or rude comments are funny. That’s what I’m told when my feelings are hurt. If it isn’t obvious already, I need to take some time to learn to be insensitive. I need to stop caring about other people’s feelings, and just let the words fly… and if the person I’m speaking to doesn’t like what I have to say, I can laugh and say “Just kidding!!!” right? Because hurt is erased as long as you say that afterwards, right?

I’ll never be the girl that has some “advice to give... on how to be insensitive.”

xoxo
Ice Princess