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It’s ‘Fine’
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’.
fine1
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1.of high quality.“this was a fine piece of filmmaking”
synonyms: excellent, first-class, first-rate, great, exceptional, outstanding, quality, superior, splendid, magnificent, exquisite, choice, select, prime, supreme, superb, wonderful, superlative, of high quality, second to none; More “fine wines”antonyms: poor -
(of a person) worthy of or eliciting admiration.“what a fine human being he is”
synonyms: worthy, admirable, praiseworthy, laudable, estimable, upright, upstanding, respectable More “a fine citizen” -
good; satisfactory.“relations in the group were fine”
synonyms: all right, acceptable, suitable, good (enough), passable, satisfactory, adequate, reasonable, tolerable; More informalOK“the initiative is fine, but it’s not enough on its own”antonyms: unsatisfactory -
used to express one’s agreement with or acquiescence to something.“anything you want is fine by me, Linda”
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synonyms: impressive, imposing, striking, splendid, grand, majestic, magnificent, stately More “a fine old house”
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1.in a satisfactory or pleasing manner; very well.““And how’s the job-hunting going?” “Oh, fine.””
The day I gave a non-existent kitten the cold leg
Ever have one of those moments when you’re busy pouting, and ‘cut off your nose to spite your face’ as ‘they’ say?
You know, that mood usually reserved for teenagers or PMSing females.
That mood when you’re likely to say ‘no’ to something amazing (like cake) just because you’re not done being grumpy. Even though you really want the something amazing (like cake.) Yeah.
My boss offered to get me a sandwich (not cake), and I was hungry. But stubbornly pissed. “No thank you.”
My inner hungry person was wide-eyed and asking me “What are you DOING?! We WANT the sandwich.”
I looked at her, (yes, I have perfected the eye roll to the point of being able to literally see the inside of my head) and she backed off.
Must have been quite a look.
That’s when I realized … I had reached that mood today.
As I told my friend Ruth who I sought out to vent to at, “If a kitten was rubbing up against my leg right now, I’d move my leg away … even if I wanted to pet it.”
Petty pouting perfected.
I was slammed at work today. And every time I quickly returned from the scanner or printer, I noticed my boss on the internet.
That bothers the crap out of me. I work my arse off, and believe me, I’m not the one getting the commission. I could have used some help.
I digress.
Remember the fan that a customer brought me? Out of the goodness of his heart? In a random act of kindness? The one I had a really hard time accepting, because I have the hardest time accepting anything from anyone? No? Read more of my posts, you’ll see that moment. Or, just click HERE.
Now, yesterday (or was it Wednesday?) ‘Fan Guy’ comes in and plops himself down at my desk and has me make copies for him and fax something for him. Not work related. A personal favor (he’s a friend of my boss.)
Okay, I can accommodate that – (after my inner busy person made the snide ‘let me just drop everything’ comment in my head.)
As I was preparing to stand up and ‘accommodate’, he turned to my boss and said, “She’s my indentured servant, working off that fan.”
WHAT?
I felt about one inch tall!!
My jaw might have hit the floor had it not been clenched in a major effort not to say out loud what my inner busy person was saying at that moment. I shan’t repeat it. It wasn’t pretty.
Don’t do that. Don’t give someone a gift and lord it over them. Don’t make comments like that people. Just don’t.
I felt awful. As if I didn’t already have a hard enough time receiving gifts, that further cinched it for me.
Back to today.
So I’m slammed and already getting a little grumpy – when ‘fan guy’ comes back. I was entirely too busy to even make eye contact. Or was I still just entirely too humiliated and pissed to make eye contact?
Hmmm … no matter. He must have sensed the temperature of my shoulder and sat at my boss’s desk this time.
It was shortly after that visit that I stomped scurried off to vent to my friend.
I decided as my lip quivered and my blood pressure rose, that I needed a break. And a major attitude adjustment.
So I took a rare lunch and drove. Just drove. Then turned around, took a deep breath and returned to work.
I keep counting my blessings – but some days my inner whiner makes a pretty good case about being allowed to occassionally take a moment to acknowledge that some things just suck.
Then my inner grateful person (she’s taller than the whiner, and smarter too) takes over quickly and get’s us all back on track.
It’s Friday. I’m home. Groceries are purchased (thanks to my job) AC is blowing cool air (thanks to my job) and I’m chatting with my son on my ipad (who went clubbing for the first time ever, in the UK) thanks to my wifi (again, thank you job.)
So – if any kittens found my leg now, I would pet them. That’s if Butters didn’t eat them.
(But if she did – she’d be grateful.)
**Disclaimer: No kittens, imaginary or real were or ever would actually be harmed by Butters**
Debauchery Soup 