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.
This perspective inspires me too. That little voice that says, “You KNOW you will regret indulging in this excess. Do you really need to learn that lesson yet again?” I learned to get head of losing relationships pretty early in life, but closing a book and turning out the light… still a struggle. We must be strong!
Oh man. So many great things in this post!!
I LOVE the “ ALL YOUR BLOOM-FLOWER ARE MINE!” comment, hehe. It makes me think of “All your base are belong to us,” one of my fav refs with my spouse.
Smart Bitches Trashy Books has their Bad Decisions Book Club, of which I was a member for years and years while working. Once I retired and could work hard on improving my sleep, I figured out that my body functions if I gave up that membership and maintained a stable bedtime instead. But the Bad Decisions Book Club is a tongue-in-cheek badge of honor coined by the romance review site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. It represents the universal reader phenomenon of staying up until 2:00 AM to finish a book, entirely knowing you have to work or function the next morning.
And finally, the phrase “trigger stacking”. I’ve never had that before, but it is going into my lexicon for immediate use!!!
I met the term trigger stacking in a meaningful way as part of an explanation for why an otherwise calm horse blows up over “nothing,” like a rabbit crossing the trail. Usually, the horse heard two other rabbits the rider did not, rustling around suspiciously in the tall grass. The horse remained stalwart, and also ignored his buddies galloping around the field without him. He ignored the engine that backfired, he got a little balky over the weird way the sun was reflecting off a mud puddle while the rider concluded the horse was just “trying to get away with nonsense,” and kicked the horse needlessly as a result. After about eight occasions of saintly behavior, the horse endures another rabbit bolting past. Horses can see movement much better than they can see shapes, so the horse doesn’t know what that thing is, but it might kill them… and off he finally goes.
That was me at summer camp, and off I truly did finally go.
I am really good at ignoring my inner voice that warns me not to do something. Do not OD on Fritos or tortilla chips. You know you will REALLY regret it later. But I love those salty crunchy morsels.
Do not overload yourself with advance reader copies. But so many of them look good and some are among my favorite authors. Is it my fault I got approved for so many in the same frickin’ month?
Yes, trigger-stacking.
My then 4 year old daughter crying, “Just hit me, Mama. I can’t stand it when you use your words.”
Being stressed with a couple of high-needs children, a spouse in a high-intensity job, trying to help with some of the typing at least, sleep-deprived, short on cash…. trigger-stacking. Thanks for that.
Trigger stacking. Getting out of bed, stepping in cat barf, squishing up through your toes. Ant attack in the cat dish, out of paper towels. Hopping to the bathroom on one foot. Landing on a cat crunchy. Banging elbow on the light switch, nearly pitching head first in the kitty box.
Truly, some days it’s safer to stay in bed.
Getting one more call/text/message from a mail pharmacy about insurance approval that my blessed doctor ripped said insurance a new one for denying. Because I’m on my 3rd appointment in a week, just had a massive nose bleed in traffic & ruined a shirt because of a reaction to a different med, am trying to find an unfamiliar address using the one good eye on a street with no visible street numbers in a car so old the GPS predates that office building even being constructed & the phone maps refuse to speak to me while in said antiquated car because something Bluetooth… Did someone see my picture in the dictionary next to OVERLOAD?!
Ahem! Yes. I know that state all too well. *looks at shirt that not even Oxyclean can remove the set bloodstains* Sigh….
Reading well into the night to finish a book is still something I can’t resist. I can limit my snacking and chocolate consumption because I don’t like the after effects. I do dislike the after effects of reading until after 4 am, but… I haven’t yet stopped the behavior.
If I can put the book down, that’s a different problem. Either I’ve been gullible about a review or taken in by the cover blurb or a personal recommendation; the book is turning out to be a just-not-my-thing; or the author has written something good enough for them, good enough for their editors, but not good enough for me.
Where I tend to indulge myself is in fabric shops. Even though I am a VERY slow quilter, I can almost always spot material that I LOVE and simply cannot live without. That happened this past weekend when Quilt Canada came to my city, Winnipeg.
One of the booths carried a half-metre bundle of glorious gold-tinged marble-like fabrics in an assortment of colours. I kept returning to fondle the material and dream what I’d do with it. I was proud of myself for passing it up since I have a closet-full of fabric already. But then I went home, googled the name, and have found a smaller bundle that I plan to order. It’s made of fat quarters but is a third of the price, so I’m planning to buy it, feeling mostly guilt-free. So much for self-control, ha, ha.
I read until far too late one night this week, and enjoyed every minute of it. Not so great though, when I had to get up in the morning ….
It’s become rare for me to enjoy a book that much.
Chocolate in the house is my kryptonite. I will eat it all if it’s there. My only solution is to not buy the chocolate. Which works…mostly!
My solution to not staying up half the night reading is never to take a new book to bed. In bed I only re-read books I know well. This is not entirely fool-proof as I do sometimes fall victim to knowing a really good scene is on its way and I can’t bear to wait until tomorrow night to read it…..
I have a rule about reading in bed – no new books. I have a bookcase especially for favorite books. I read one of the. At night because it is much easier to put them down when I start to feel drowsy.
As for trigger stacking, it helped to retire I will say that much!
A quote I love, along this line: He stared at her with the barely suppressed wrath of a man to whom entirely too much had happened.—Lisa Kleypas, Love in the Afternoon
I don’t think there’s a truer axiom than “everyone makes mistakes” (or, if you’re feeling philosophical, “to err is human”).
Perfection is both unrealistic and boring.
I try to love both others and myself with this in mind, whether the imperfection is harmless, like overbuying plants, or serious, like inappropriately directing the emotions resulting from a challenging day. I apologize where it’s warranted; I try to learn and do better in future; I forgive myself as I would forgive someone I love.
Your characters are human, and flawed, and are relatable and endearing because of it. They’re loved not just by their fictional romantic partners/families/friends but also your readers, not in spite of, but because they don’t always color in the lines.