I have a terrible temper! I really do. But I am learning, whether it is tempered by age (I'm 41, and am beginning to have a little age cred) or something I have been taught over the years, to not have it explode like Mt Vesuvius in a torrent of words with no punctuation or paragraphs.
I successfully indicated to a woman, who has never met me, over the phone that I will be a very upset person if I became a lost phone message. I was very polite, I do not think I changed my volume by more than a hair and my use of grammar was better than my average chop at the father language.
Instead of waiting what I thought would be 30 minutes (did I mention I was a little impatient?), I received a call within 5 minutes of leaving said message.
What I really wanted to do was ripe that poor woman a new one. I was almost seeing those odd Picasso-ish red splotches floating in my visual field. But I realized that she was just a messenger and it was not her fault the whole department I needed to do business with was in a meeting.
Why you ask, would I need to lose my temper? I seem like a reasonable and possibly understanding adult who does not mind getting along with society. It is very simple: I have a sick kid who is in pain. My little wayward, waif daughter is hurting and has a fever. Yes, she is 18. Yes, she basically moved herself out of my house because she "is 18". Yes, I been eating that up like yesterday's humble pie.
But I had another pre-programmed impulse fire up engines. Yup, the Mommy Instinct moved in.
It's not often I use the Mommy Instinct to get things done right for my kids. But I really felt like a Mamma Bear just out of hibernation and ready to take down a forest to care for her. Now I get to take care of her, my poor baby. I bet you some of my nonexistent money that she feels just a little better being "home" again.
I feel better right now than I have felt in a little while. I am pretty proud I didn't follow my initial instinct, and I feel much more comfortable being able to follow a more familiar instinct. As always, this will be an interesting week.
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