Irony that isn't irony

When I say something, nine times out of ten, I'm serious. As in, I meant what I said. For the other one percent, I'm usually kidding around, but if you know me you can tell. My humor is not that dry, and I usually fill those "gotcha" kind of one-percenters with funny expressions, eye brow shapes, and puckered mouths. I've even taken to doing this nod thing with my nose where my chin kind of stays elevated to signal that, yes, indeed, I'm joking around.

But ten times out of ten, and when it has to do with critical subject matter, I mean serious business.

What does it take to get people to LISTEN?

The fact that I have to declare that at all makes me crazy. I don't have time for this today. I have an exciting performance tonight with the youth symphony playing at the mall! To me, having to declare or question why I can't be taken seriously speaks to the way in which I may have been perceived, perhaps depending on the way I've carried myself, and finally what weight or worth my words have. It even speaks to the possible opinions/perceptions of those who regard my miseries as misfortune I have simply brought on myself, which I have been told, which have stung, and which in actually reflection is only about 2% true.

I thought I had the right balance of seriousness and sarcasm/humor. At least the kind of balance I wanted where when I was joking, people would know and when I was serious, they would take what I had to say and digest it or at least... shut. Up.

I know, right? Sounds totally deluded. Like, WHO do I think I AM, right? Or at least what makes me feel like my words should be regarded with such weight, right?

Well it seems I there is a recurring theme of not being taken seriously in my life. I could factor in where I was, where I've been, the people around me, where they've been, what's brought us all to that point, my various inabilities to gauge when to stop joking around (my dad was big on getting us kids to realize we constantly overdid the humor thing,) my astrological sign (Geminis are known to be "childlike",) my idealistic take on some things, but at the end of the day, each time I was fighting to be taken seriously was time which amounted to the summit of experience I had in my life at those times, thus deserving (I figured) the same damned respect I've given others, even those with far less life experience. And since I do have a buttload of life experience (I've thought about doing stand-up, wondering how I would organize my material,)--every year adding a little more--I figure that someone, at least one person or a few, would recognize when to laugh and when to shut. Up.

But maybe I'm not worth taking seriously. Who knows. Hard to say. I don't really care. Save for how it frustrates the ever-lovin' bagoomus out of me. I just got another message from a guy I knew a long time ago, who tried taking advantage of the vulnerable situation that was me back then, who I deflected, thwarted off multiple times, deleted, blocked off, chopped off just after stating my position of "NO!" clearly and bluntly, and eventually was able to forget. Leave it to Facebook to open new avenues of "connecting with friends" !@#$%! Besides angering, it's humiliating. Absolutely humiliating.

I don't have time for this crap. I don't have the time to keep looking back, nor the desire to keeping looking back, on a former line of living that involved serious, grievous, erred ways of thinking and relating to others, especially on account that I still have yet to grieve the loss of my marriage and am concentrating on this wonderful, relatively new relationship I'm in now. It feels amazing to be this loved! The things I have learned! The ways I have grown!

But even if it wasn't this to aggravate my running theme of people in and out of my life not respecting boundaries, it would be something else, somebody else, and I'm sick of it. Maybe I'm being foolish to think I am wise, but then if I am a fool, I should rejoice because there will come the day where the foolish shame the wise.