Well, I had a flat tire. So there.

It’s official. I’m bitter.

I don’t know when it happened exactly, but I do know that the culmination of recent events have pushed me over the bitter ledge leaving this once sweet, sugar coated lady a burnt and salty wench.

I came to this harsh realization when I started to do something that I HATE other people do. My biggest pet peeve is when people try to trump your worries and pains with theirs. These are the kind of people who respond to your grandma dying with, “well, my dog passed away last year of old age and it was really hard of my family even though I’m allergic to dog hair and have had my eyes swollen shut with dander for the past 13 years that Fido was living.” Um. Thanks for the sympathy.

Can these kind of people ever let others grovel in defeat without making them feel like they truly don’t know what defeat is? And why is it that their flat tire on a highway story is SO much better and more dramatic than yours?

I have sadly started to try to trump people’s stress but only because I feel so overwhelmed with life that I sometimes am shocked I make it to work and don’t find myself detouring to the Mexican border.

I normally handle stress quite well and can smile my way through a lot of chaos. However, the stressful combination I’ve been dealing with lately has turned into a toxic mess forcing me to stock pile every little “bad” thing that happens so I can successfully shoot down whoever attempts to complain about their own troubles. And what’s worse, I take every bad situation and make it even more terrible… let me give you an example:

A few weeks ago I was driving through construction and surprise, surprise I got a flat tire. But the tire didn’t go flat until I was safely at home turning out of my driveway on my way to run an errand that wasn’t urgent or even necessary. Even more convenient, my dad was willing and able to take my car in the next day to get fixed and cordially offered me a ride to work the next morning.

My response to all of this? “God hates me.” And better yet, I took that flat tire incident (that was resolved completely the next day, by the way) and have carried it around with me for the past two weeks and finish most of my complaining with, “AND I got a flat tire [insert number] days ago.” My bitter mind thinks such a statement packs some extra punch to the story of my current misery.

Dramatic, right? Now that I think back to all of that I’m pretty sure if God didn’t like me, he’d strike me down with lightening. Plus if he gave flat tires to those he didn’t like, there would be a dramatic decrease in violence because a significant amount of criminals would be stuck on the side of the road with AAA instead of at potential crime scenes.

So here I am, frazzled with my wedding, tired of dealing with selfish people, burnt out with house work, overwhelmed with a job that pushes me to my professional limits… oh, and did I tell you I got a flat tire 16 days ago??

I take all of this and package it up when someone starts to groan about a single worry like lost car keys or a flat tire (and note that I can complain about MY flat tire because I have WAY more going on than you do.) And I realize I’m not being fair because no worry, no matter how small, should be deemed insignificant.

In fact, my pile of worries probably pales in comparison to people who have actual problems because even though my bitterness forces me to act like a nut at times, I DO know that a flat tire isn’t the end of the world and that planning a wedding, regardless of the bumps in the road, is a wonderful thing no matter what, more responsibility at work is a positive thing that shows you actually know what you're doing and having house work is great when you think that most people don't even have a house to call their own.

I miss the girl who used to politely listen to people’s woes, nod sympathetically and sometimes even throw in a “I can’t imagine” to make sure full out compassion was given.

Although I’m not going to minimize the importance of my own stress, I am going to work on accepting other people’s with more humility because I refuse to become that person I hate.

And today I made progress. Someone I work with went on for hours about her broken TiVo and how upset she was that she couldn’t watch her shows. My first instinct was to laugh her in face and go into my full spiel about what it truly means to be upset, giving her a true show to watch. But I held myself back, listened intently and didn’t even bring up the fact that, due to my hectic, stressful schedule, I haven’t watched TV in so that I still think Kelly Clarkson was the last American Idol.

Do I smell something sweet? Yes, sir… my sugar coating is slowly coming back… but maybe I’ll sneak out at lunch and put a construction nail in her tire just so she gets a little perspective of what stress really is... yep, still a little bitter underneath.