Fall into Crabbiness

Fall makes me crabby. I’m picking fights with my husband B for no apparent reason. 

Example 1) Tuesday is my day to cook. Yes, I’m spoiled. He cooks – or takes me out – all the other days. He says he enjoys it, finds chopping meditative; who am I to steal this pleasure from him? Anyway, I have everything ready: a fresh spinach salad, roasted potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, onions and sweet peppers. The kitchen smells wonderful, I’m starving (translation: hangry) and I’m waiting for him to work his magic on the leftover turkey. Where is he? I dump some oil on the turkey, shove it in the rapidly cooling oven, scowl at him as he comes in.

“I didn’t think you’d ever get here,” I say.

“It’s 5:30,” he points out. 

And it’s true. He generally comes home from work between 5:15 and 5:30. Geez Reets! Relax a little.

Example 2) The other morning, spliced in between obnoxious and ancient rock from FM96 Taz and Jim (we listen in case they have something to say about B’s building that he runs), B’s smoothie-making machine and the Barista express coffee maker, I find an opportunity for conversation. 

I share with him what I was writing in my journal, about Harry and Meghan, how it makes me so damn angry that nobody likes them anymore. Their love story on Netflix was so sweet, so romantic, moreso than I expect the David Beckham doc to be, and so what if Harry bashed Camilla to Charles? He was cheating on Diana with her! Harry reminds me of Diana so much, he has that same charismatic energy.

B endures my tirade. Pretty sure if I was just talking about Diana, he’d have something to add. He saw her once on a crowded street in real London, actually felt her star power from a distance, thinks they locked eyes, had a moment. Anyhoo, he just shrugs, shakes his head, says, “I have no comment on this.”

Hmmm.

Of course, it’s not about Harry and Meghan. Or Tuesday cooking. Perhaps I’m upset because I can no longer drink coffee outside on the porch; the house suddenly got way smaller, darker and colder. I’m wearing socks for cripes’ sake!

Oh and, despite many experts positing that modern warfare will be fought differently, perhaps on screens rather than on battlefields, there has been yet another horrific incursion. As the morbid details of that Saturday get revealed and retaliation begins, we see that people – as they’re fully entitled to – have varying points of view.

Thinking about points of view can drive one absolutely insane, huh? I try to put myself in other shoes and minds. To some degree I must succeed because I ran into a blog-reader recently who said, twice!, “You’re so compassionate.” I take that as a huge compliment.

Palestinians in Canada celebrating what Hamas did in Israel? I can’t wrap my head around it. 

I know it’s a complicated issue. Discussing the Middle East with my sister-in-law the other day, she brought up the bible story her mom shared with her. Here it is from britannica.com: “Ishmael was born and brought up in Abraham’s household. Some 13 years later, however, Sarah conceived Isaac, with whom God established his covenant. Isaac became Abraham’s sole heir, and Ishmael and Hagar were banished to the desert, though God promised that Ishmael would raise up a great nation of his own.” Isaac became the forebear of Jewish lineage, Ishmael of Arab.

So, if you peel back a couple thousand years and millions of people? It seems you have a couple of brothers vying for a father’s love and land/wealth while adopting different beliefs about religion.

Will we ever be able to accept people, as is, regardless of what they believe? Will we ever be able to share the land?

On a smaller scale (and aside from badgering B), I’ve been experiencing and witnessing the evolution of friendships. They change over time, yes? People grow, or don’t. Of course, I think I’m the enlightened one, but the other thinks so too. Mind-bending stuff. Like in that old Eagles song “The Best of My Love”: “You see it your way, I see it mine, But we both see it slipping away …”

Maybe she’s just not that into me … 

Listened to a great Mel Robbins podcast about it – there’s a podcast for everything right? The “Let Them Theory”. Your friends left you out of a Toronto getaway? “Let them”. Your kid and his friends want to go to McDonalds in their tuxes and gowns before prom? “Let them”. Your gf wants to date another loser? “Let her”.

The bottom line is, who can we control? Numero uno. You gotta do what you gotta do from your point of view having endured your own past with all of its excruciating highs, lows and in-betweens.

Your friends left you out? Perhaps you haven’t been keeping in touch? Invite them to something. Your kid didn’t make a reso at a fine restaurant? Well, this will either be a great lesson in planning, or incredible memories will be made. Your gf has ongoing dating issues? It’s really none of your business. Unless, of course, she asks. But do not fall into that trap! She’s still gonna do what she’s gonna do.

Battles, both big and small, need an adversary. B has given me good advice on this in the past: “Sometimes it’s better to just be dumb and happy.” In my daily meditations, I’m taking my strongly held beliefs, molding them into rectangular shapes, like books, and setting them on shelves, so I don’t have to hold them so tight, defend them so forcefully.

I actually like living where there are four distinct seasons. It just takes a bit to adjust; the temperature shift was swift this year.

I can’t control what any other person on the planet thinks, says or does, but I can certainly plunk my crabbiness on a high shelf, way out of reach.