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muck_a_luckThis morning, I spent a hour not losing my temper with AG33. I was trying to help him do something difficult, but something that he should be more than able to do. Something he doesn't really want to do, but that I really, really want him to do, and that I know he can do. He was being reasonable and engaging with me in my attempts to help him, but in the end, he was in tears and had basically made himself sick.
I remained calm, reasonable, loving, understanding, and sympathetic. But I also stood firm and insisted on having my way.
It takes a lot of effort to be that calm for a whole hour when what you really want to do is just scream at the person to JUST DO IT!
Meanwhile, for a lot of this time, I'm also trying to get The Barbarian ready for her day. SHE is insisting on dressing herself, which is adorable, especially because she does it wrong on purpose to get a laugh before she fixes it and gets dressed right. Which was SO not helping this morning. Then she wanted half of AG33's breakfast and I couldn't maintain my composure with AG33 while having the you-can't-have-your-brother's-food argument with HER, so I caved and just made him additional breakfast. Then she wanted a drink for the car. I caved again, as my focus was on her brother. We FINALLY got out the door, and into the car and she pipes up, "I want my drink," which of course, we had left inside.
I, literally roared "NO!" I just couldn't go back IN the house after I had finally gotten OUT of it.
So she gives me the silent treatment the whole trip to day care, which was actually fine by me. Just sitting back there glaring and holding her stolen garlic bread in her little angry fist. Of course, after we fight and make up (which we did as soon as I could get her in my arms), she gets all clingy and then I have to spend way more time than necessary getting away from the day care. But in the end that went much better than expected because one of her favorite teachers was already there and she went fairly readily to her.
But it is a lesson in how it doesn't really pay off to vent your anger, but mostly just creates a different kind of stress.
I also lost my temper in traffic, which really, notwithstanding my rants in this journal, I NEVER do. I do occassionally refuse to turn right on red, but that's IT as far as my traffic aggression goes. I am a truly model driver, and I say that matter-of-factly. This morning, in fact, the source of my irritation was the result of me carefully not blocking the box at an intersection. I could see traffic backed up from the next light and I stopped like a good girl, which in fact allowed a person waiting to turn left to go ahead and make their turn. But there was also this guy waiting to turn RIGHT ON RED out of the driveway to my right that had the red light. So traffic starts moving, and I want to go ahead and move with traffic, and this guy CUTS ME OFF by aggressively forcing his way into traffic. If I had been a cop, I could have given him a ticket for running the light. But I did not have that power, so instead I absolutely STOOD on my horn for about 15 seconds.
And here is the lesson folks.
Instead of getting the FUCK out of the way. The guy STOPPED in the road to look back at me.
I was so livid, I actually made shooing gestures at him while yelling "GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!" which if he can speak English I sure he could read on my lips in his rearview. So he kind of inched up to the light, which of course turned red during his little exercise in rudeness and my responding road rage. He then looked like he was going to pull my no-turning stunt, but in the end he didn't have the balls to wait it out, and he went ahead and turned. Whereupon I allowed myself one more bit of angry driving and I used my eight cylinders to blast around his pathetic little hybrid and get ahead of his ass, at least. But so not worth the bloodpressure of the original honking. If I had just rolled my eyes at the rudeness like I usually do, I would have had overall much less irritation. But having just spent an hour not losing my temper for someone I truly love, I just couldn't be not angry anymore.
And in the final wonder of my commute, I again did not block the box. This time, it was at the pedistrian crossing light for the major bike/pedistrian trail that stands between The Barbarian's day care and my access to the major artery that I take to the office. The path crosses a secondary road about half a block from a light where a lot of people turn left. If it gets backed up, I try to be respectful of the cyclists and runners and treat their crosswalk as a crossing road, whether on not the light protecting that walk is red or green. Today it was green, but I didn't park in their crosswalk.
However, it stayed green, and my light turned green, and all the people had cleared the walk, so I started to move forward. Then I saw another guy coming down the path pretty fast. So I happily stopped again. But he had already seen me moving, so he stopped. Fine. I did have the right of way and was ready to take it. So I started forward again.
Well, apparently, I psyched the guy out. I glance over toward him as I pull foward and I see that he is completely flummoxed and then...
He just fell over.
On his hot zillion gear bike, in his bike shoes and racing gear and special helmet.
Just tipped over, like it was slow motion.
Honestly, I didn't know whether to pull over and offer the guy some peroxide and a bandaid, or whether I just wanted to flip him off and screech away.
A great metaphor for my morning, I think. A slowly crashing, flailing cyclist, humiliated and angry on the side of the road.
*sigh*
And haha! I realize I have not set up the crossposting, so I guess I'll do that manually! :D
I remained calm, reasonable, loving, understanding, and sympathetic. But I also stood firm and insisted on having my way.
It takes a lot of effort to be that calm for a whole hour when what you really want to do is just scream at the person to JUST DO IT!
Meanwhile, for a lot of this time, I'm also trying to get The Barbarian ready for her day. SHE is insisting on dressing herself, which is adorable, especially because she does it wrong on purpose to get a laugh before she fixes it and gets dressed right. Which was SO not helping this morning. Then she wanted half of AG33's breakfast and I couldn't maintain my composure with AG33 while having the you-can't-have-your-brother's-food argument with HER, so I caved and just made him additional breakfast. Then she wanted a drink for the car. I caved again, as my focus was on her brother. We FINALLY got out the door, and into the car and she pipes up, "I want my drink," which of course, we had left inside.
I, literally roared "NO!" I just couldn't go back IN the house after I had finally gotten OUT of it.
So she gives me the silent treatment the whole trip to day care, which was actually fine by me. Just sitting back there glaring and holding her stolen garlic bread in her little angry fist. Of course, after we fight and make up (which we did as soon as I could get her in my arms), she gets all clingy and then I have to spend way more time than necessary getting away from the day care. But in the end that went much better than expected because one of her favorite teachers was already there and she went fairly readily to her.
But it is a lesson in how it doesn't really pay off to vent your anger, but mostly just creates a different kind of stress.
I also lost my temper in traffic, which really, notwithstanding my rants in this journal, I NEVER do. I do occassionally refuse to turn right on red, but that's IT as far as my traffic aggression goes. I am a truly model driver, and I say that matter-of-factly. This morning, in fact, the source of my irritation was the result of me carefully not blocking the box at an intersection. I could see traffic backed up from the next light and I stopped like a good girl, which in fact allowed a person waiting to turn left to go ahead and make their turn. But there was also this guy waiting to turn RIGHT ON RED out of the driveway to my right that had the red light. So traffic starts moving, and I want to go ahead and move with traffic, and this guy CUTS ME OFF by aggressively forcing his way into traffic. If I had been a cop, I could have given him a ticket for running the light. But I did not have that power, so instead I absolutely STOOD on my horn for about 15 seconds.
And here is the lesson folks.
Instead of getting the FUCK out of the way. The guy STOPPED in the road to look back at me.
I was so livid, I actually made shooing gestures at him while yelling "GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!" which if he can speak English I sure he could read on my lips in his rearview. So he kind of inched up to the light, which of course turned red during his little exercise in rudeness and my responding road rage. He then looked like he was going to pull my no-turning stunt, but in the end he didn't have the balls to wait it out, and he went ahead and turned. Whereupon I allowed myself one more bit of angry driving and I used my eight cylinders to blast around his pathetic little hybrid and get ahead of his ass, at least. But so not worth the bloodpressure of the original honking. If I had just rolled my eyes at the rudeness like I usually do, I would have had overall much less irritation. But having just spent an hour not losing my temper for someone I truly love, I just couldn't be not angry anymore.
And in the final wonder of my commute, I again did not block the box. This time, it was at the pedistrian crossing light for the major bike/pedistrian trail that stands between The Barbarian's day care and my access to the major artery that I take to the office. The path crosses a secondary road about half a block from a light where a lot of people turn left. If it gets backed up, I try to be respectful of the cyclists and runners and treat their crosswalk as a crossing road, whether on not the light protecting that walk is red or green. Today it was green, but I didn't park in their crosswalk.
However, it stayed green, and my light turned green, and all the people had cleared the walk, so I started to move forward. Then I saw another guy coming down the path pretty fast. So I happily stopped again. But he had already seen me moving, so he stopped. Fine. I did have the right of way and was ready to take it. So I started forward again.
Well, apparently, I psyched the guy out. I glance over toward him as I pull foward and I see that he is completely flummoxed and then...
He just fell over.
On his hot zillion gear bike, in his bike shoes and racing gear and special helmet.
Just tipped over, like it was slow motion.
Honestly, I didn't know whether to pull over and offer the guy some peroxide and a bandaid, or whether I just wanted to flip him off and screech away.
A great metaphor for my morning, I think. A slowly crashing, flailing cyclist, humiliated and angry on the side of the road.
*sigh*
And haha! I realize I have not set up the crossposting, so I guess I'll do that manually! :D
no subject
Date: 2009-08-05 04:13 pm (UTC)(Also, mental image of psyched out, flailing bike nerd is too funny!)