Wednesday, December 1, 2010

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: My Self-Reflection

I was reading Mat. Anna's blog posting from which I stole my title (more here), and it made me think about my own harassing demon.  I get mad and yell.  I'm getting better about it with constant reminders from my husband and kids, but sometimes it is so hard to avoid.

One of my least favorite tasks, and one that I have to do a few times a week, is driving... to get groceries, to pick up Yaya from school, and to run the occasional random errand.  The crazy things I see people do when driving just, well, make me crazy.  In the last two days I saw two people fly around traffic in the left turn only lane, only to try to swing back in at the last minute.  When this happened yesterday a lady tried to get right in front of me, and this was after I had been sitting in traffic for about 30 minutes (a truck had gotten stuck under a bridge and backed everything up).  I honked my horn to tell her I found that unacceptable, and when she looked at me and started gesturing, I yelled back... But then I heard a very wise voice from the back of the car say, "Mama, no yell."  I stopped instantly at my two year old's request and apologized to the girls for yelling, admitting that it was a very bad thing to do and a bad example for them.  So, when I saw someone do the same thing (albeit in less traffic) tonight on my way to pick Julia up, I mentally noted how wrong he was to do it, and I let it go.

That's the key... to let it go.  I must constantly remind myself that most of the things that get me riled up aren't going to matter in the long run, or even in the short run.  And those that will matter are better dealt with in a calm, rational way.  It helps to have little voices outside my head reminding me, too, just as I remind them.

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