Observations of an Oblivious Woman: Gut Check

I've been dealing with some personal issues the past few weeks regarding my biggest pet peeve: other people telling me what to do or making decisions for me. I loathe it!!! I have a brain and the last time I checked I knew what was going on in my personal life well enough to make my own decisions. Generally, I am not a person who is angry for long periods of time or who gets offended easily. I'm one of those people who has a very short fuse that I used to allow to blow, but once it blew it was over and done with. But because I don't like the person I am when I lose my temper, I have been very careful to keep that fuse soaking wet so it can't be ignited. I have been trying and trying to figure out why this particular incident has me so riled. Part of it might be that I didn't lose my temper over this issue a year ago.

Brother #1 was able to point out a possible reason. He reminded me that the only people we allow to get under our skin and irritate us are the people we allow access to our vulnerability. Those we trust are the ones we allow to see the flaws and when they do something that makes us feel betrayed, we want to lash out in humiliation that we allowed someone who was not trustworthy into our private sanctum. I feel like Sally Field at the end of Steel Magnolias. "I just want to hit someone until they feel as bad as I do." I know it won't make me feel better but right now the hurt has turned to rage and I have no outlet for it.

A family friend shared this poem today and it put some things into perspective. Maybe you need to think about the way you treat the people you profess to love or care about versus the way you treat the people whose names you don't even know.