Grrr! or I ain't no hollaback girl

Without being too sure what exactly comprises an alpha-type personality, I'm pretty sure I'm not one. Not quite. I think I have traces of it, I was the kid achieving extremely well in school until the family implosion when I was in Year 12. And I am an oldest child and therefore bossy, and I like to be the centre of attention.

However, in the career stakes I am a bit of a hippy drop-out, opting for family and personal cosy-ness over the Real Job. (Which is not to say other people can't have both, just that this is not what I want to do in my life). Maybe when I am older I will be sad I never explored my full potential (could I have been a high-flying lawyer?) but I'm willing to risk that. And obviously the not having much money can occasionally be a drag. But as I see it, I am very happy in my life at present. I do have a career of sorts; I even have My Own Business, and this, to my mind, is not to be sneezed at. I love my job, I think I'm good at it and I'm able to be home with the kids during the day and out fulfilling my creative urges at night. And it's not like we're broke, we have all we need. What we don't have is The Great Australian Dream Mortgage. Cest la vie.

Elda and I were discussing all this recently, and were wondering if we were A-minus or B+ types. Is there such a thing? Because both of us have been told that we are scary/intimidating by various people in our lives and we always walk away after those comments mentally shaking our heads. See the thing is, I am a complete coward. Physically and emotionally. The lengths I will go to NOT have a confrontation are ..well .. really long!! I'll bend, I'll fold. I reckon it's only since having kids that I've learned to have a medium-sized yell at other people, but I need to be incandescent with rage to actually do this. And it's rare that I reach that level of rage; on the whole I walk a happy walk, and only stray as far as 'irritable' territory if I fall off the happy path. Trade secret: if you yell at me, chances are I will back down. The good news is that Fixit is not very shouty. We have mild little grumps at each other and hardly ever fight. That's how we like it.

I think the scary reputation comes from a few things:

• Not being very good at disguising my irritability.
• edited to add: Having opinions. And being competitive.
  
• Suffering from occasional bouts of foot-in-mouth. Must. Think. Before. Opening. Mouth. But don't we all do that? And I usually pay for these faux pas with a week's worth of agonising and kicking myself.
  
• Being very bad at waking up of a morning and therefore very grumpy if I don't get to "come-to" in my preferred way (sitting in bed for a good half an hour with a cup of tea, arranging my thoughts for the day) This really only applies if you stay at our house and try to talk to me too early. *cough*Bronnie*cough*
  
• Being a reasonably strict mother. Eg. once my kids are in bed, they are not welcome to get back up again and I will roar to enforce this. I don't find them cute when they get back up, even when Climber comes out all docile and says he needs a hug, something that obviously works on Fixit on the nights I go out to teach. And I'm bossy about manners and tend not to cut kids much slack in this department.
  
• Being quite confident about many parts of myself and my life. You know, except for all those bits I feel desperately insecure about.
  

The most recent person to have called me scary (not to my face) was a teenager, and I understand this, because I'm not good with teenagers. I'm probably as scared of them as they are of me, really. I'm hoping to be better with them when my kids hit that age. In the meantime, don't be scared. My bark and my bite are quite pathetic, actually.