Being an Avoider Gets Me Into Trouble

I should’ve learned my lesson but I can’t open the email

I’ve been sitting on an email. I know I should open it, but I haven’t. It’s been weeks. I’m aggravated with myself. I thought I had discarded my avoider ways.

But old habits die hard. I hold my breath, open the email and type a response. I’ve created a secondary problem, I don’t want to deal with the response either.

Years ago, my BFF gave me grief over another avoider debacle.

“Colleen,” she says. “Did you open the letter yet?” “Nope,” I say. “Open it,” she insists. “I don’t want to read it,” I say. “I don’t want to know what it says. Plus, technically it’s not addressed to me.”

I’m being a smart ass.

My mother-in-law has annoyingly addressed the letter to “Coleen’ with one L. I mean, really? I’m pretty sure my name was on the wedding invitation. And on every single piece of correspondence I sent her.

To be fair, if our relationship was better, I might think it was funny. Even after several decades of being married to her son.

But shouldn’t a woman know how to spell the name of her daughter-in-law? Call me crazy. Maybe it’s too much to ask. My ex-husband certainly thought it was. He said I was being difficult.

Note to self.

Don’t require people, I mean family, to spell your name properly. It evidently, means you make a big deal of things. I finally caved and opened the letter.

It turns out, it wasn’t bad. All of that for nothing. A piece of mail sat on my kitchen counter for weeks. My stomach was in perpetual knots. Worse, I had to keep staring at “Coleen’ with one L.

I guess I should clarify when I’m an avoider.

I avoid unpleasantness. I avoid conflict.

It’s something I successfully overcame as an adult. I learned to face things head on. I learned to get it over with, to rip the Band-aid off. I was wise enough to recognize the error of my ways.

When I avoided things, it actually could make a situation worse.

It could ramp up the emotion.

People don’t like it when you avoid a situation, in order to avoid the conflict. It can tick them off even more. I get it. And I ultimately got it. But then my marriage took a nosedive.

I was overwhelmed.

Way too much conflict for an avoider.

I didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with any other unpleasantness in my life.

In my attempt to solve some of my marital issues, I called my mother-in-law. I wanted her help. I was desperate. My ex-husband was out of control. He was upsetting our children and he didn’t care.

Hence, why I avoided opening her letter. She didn’t like me much after that phone call. Okay, she hated me.

I must be lying about her son. There’s no way he could be drinking and scaring his wife and children. There’s no way I could be telling her the truth.

After that, it was all bets are off. As my little guy once said, “We got one mean Grammy.” She never forgave me.

This morning I stared at the email I’ve been avoiding.

“Grow up!” I think to myself. “What’s the big deal? Get it over with? You’ve got to read what he said. How bad can it be? He’s probably a little annoyed, but you deserve to be annoyed too.”

This is the dialogue I’m having with myself. This isn’t a personal email. It’s a business one.

It’s a situation that has gotten more complicated than it should have. I’m pretty good at recognizing my own behavior. This isn’t about me. I’m being taken advantage of. I’ve attempted to gain my position back.

Unfortunately, I’ve become somewhat vulnerable.

It’s not worth explaining.

Suffice it to say, sometimes in professional situations, other people can be at an advantage. It could be because of their position or other mitigating factors.

It’s the Yin and yang of power.

I’m not a shrinking violet, especially when it comes to business. I’m pragmatic and direct. I’m the opposite of personal Colleen, and I’m certainly not an avoider.

A few years ago, I agreed to do some work for a friend. We were working on a PR project for one of his clients. We went to lunch to discuss the details with that client.

“Who was that?” my friend says.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Where was Colleen?” he says. “You weren’t anything like social Colleen.”

“Oh,” I say. “That was business Colleen.”

I laughed because my friend was so shocked.

But he was right.

Social Colleen and business Colleen are two different people. Colleen the marketer is not Colleen the writer. In one scenario, I have to be pragmatic, and assess operations. In the other, I get to be reflective, deep, emotional, and a smart ass. It works for me.

One one side, I attack things head on. On the other, I avoid them. It gets me into trouble sometimes. All this ‘avoider’ flaw self-exposing made me take a quick break from writing this. I mean, I did say I was a grown-up somewhere earlier in this diatribe.

It’s time to stare down my own fears. They couldn’t possibly be worse than my mother-in-law. She was way scarier.

I jumped back into my email. I held my breath and opened the foreboding response. It’s like history repeating itself. I’m going to need to ring my BFF and tell her she was right again.

It wasn’t scary, it was good news. But that’s what happens when you stop avoiding unpleasantness. The situation can turn out better than expected.

The anticipation is way worse. But hey, I still get myself into trouble sometimes.

Old habits die hard.