About a year ago, I had a terrible, horrible, awful very bad morning, at the end of a week that included successive days of excessive heat, being physically assaulted by a program participant, crossing swords with several people in quick succession… and at the end of that week, it’s fair to say, I lost my filter. (I posted about it here.)
My pre-frontal cortex went off-line. I ranted, I demanded, I insisted, and I generally went on a verbal rampage that the people on the receiving end of my bazooka blasts did not enjoy. Neither did I, though it must be said that at no point did I raise my voice or indulge in profanity.
I know what caused my lapse of self-restraint–too many stressors piling up at once without enough time to decompress between them. The term trigger-stacking applied. Then I saw and heard a person in authority insulting another volunteer, and… thar she blows!
I can’t recall another occasion when I have expressed an upset so verbally, but there are other situations where I lose a filter of sorts. Turn me loose in a well organized garden shop, and I become Brunhilda the Huntress, tossing zinnias into my cart beside impatiens, and what the heck marigolds are heat tolerant, but then, an occasional sunflower adds a nice vertical element, and–trellis for the morning glories! Hanging baskets! ALL YOUR BLOOM-FLOWER ARE MINE!
By the time I get home, sanity returns and the rules come back on line: No more flower shopping until every single plant is in the ground and thoroughly watered, you hear me, Grace Ann?
I also grow a little heedless when I’m finishing the day with a good book. Yes, I must get up in the morning, and nobody will steal the book if I put it down and get a good night’s sleep. I nevertheless read on, confident that the Disposer of All Events made alarm clocks for people like me, and what’s one more nother-nother scene? I can read the whole book tonight I want to.
In the garden shop, the abundance of floral cheer trips some breaker in my otherwise orderly acquisition plans. I don’t go overboard at grocery stores or buying clothes or even in candy shops, but those lovely, bright, magical flowers… I want them all forever.
And with the book, the allure is relief from my sometimes overwhelming reality, the chance to hold back the tide of responsibilities and disappointments for just a few more pages. I become enthralled with a well written yarn, and I want to stay in that enchanted place.
What makes you break or bend the rules of common sense or expected civilities? If you always, always color inside the lines, how do you do that?
Brutal self-discipline that I don’t actually enjoy one bit. I am a natural night owl and love to read and hate to stop in the middle. While I sometimes indulge myself, it’s pretty rare these days because I discovered that I hated the morning after so much (this applies to alcohol consumption as well). I remind myself that the consequences are so awful and I don’t want to experience them. I just cannot bounce back from too few hours of sleep the way I did in my 20s and 30s. But it’s truly wrenching to put the book down when there’s really only 2 chapters left and the couple is almost happy or the murderer almost revealed. I had to do it last night with Lord Peter and Miss Vane (yes, I’m way late to the party). Didn’t like to leave it but don’t like the subsequent “pain” much more and do my best to avoid it. But I don’t really know how I manage to do it.