Yesterday, for a myriad of reasons – I was upset. Physically hurting and my emotional nerves exposed.

I was shamefully aware of my negative attitude.

I tried to sequester myself as much as I could, tried to limit the words that came out of my mouth – because I knew they were being tainted by my mood.

I still had to interact though – when people came to me.  I kept my responses short – bit down on the bitchy verbal Tourette’s that strained to come out of my mouth.

I failed a couple of times – but owned it.  I said to one person, ‘God, I’m sorry – I am being a completely unreasonable bitch.’

To be fair, (to myself for once), my responses were not completely unreasonable.  But if there’s one thing I’ve practiced to a fairly consistent level of aptitude – it is choosing to filter my responses and to find a positive way to respond, rather than react.

Then my son called.

Why, oh why do we hurt the ones we love?

I think it has a lot to do with having more interaction with them than anyone, mixed with the arrogant assumption that our loved ones will forgive us.  Also, lashing out stems from fear, and where there is great emotion – there is something that we care greatly about behind it.

The phone call came at a bad time, (Okay, any hour yesterday was a ‘bad time’) and unless he was calling to tell me he loved me and by the way, the house was clean, laundry done and a cake magically appeared in the fridge,  there wasn’t anything he could have said to his advantage.

I was upset that he stayed up most of the night before – I was upset that our conversations about him doing more around the house had not resulted in him actually doing more around the house.  I was upset that … let’s face it, I was just upset.

I spat words at him – and when he reacted – I struck again.  Verbally.  I reached a point where I could not be a part of the conversation any longer and … CLICK!

I hung up.

I’ve told him one of the worst things you can do is hang up on someone.  It’s rude – it’s unkind – it’s immature.  Apropos response on my behalf I suppose, considering I was being rude, unkind and immature.

5 O’Clock finally arrived.

I drove home – with my tail between my legs.  (Which is a quite uncomfortable to sit by the way.)

When we finally spoke – I apologized.  I calmly expressed my frustrations and we spoke eye to eye.

I apologized for the way I spoke to him and he said, “Mom, it’s fine.”

That didn’t sit well with me.

“No,” I said,  “no it’s not fine.  It may be forgivable – perhaps even to some degree understandable – but it is NOT ‘fine’ for someone to speak to you that way.  Don’t you go through life thinking that it is.”

No matter how hurt, angry or exposed I feel, I will keep practicing the choice to respond positively – and if I can’t – I’ll practice removing myself from the situation until I can.

Because negative reactions are never ‘fine’.

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