What is frustration? I think I had a pretty good time with it last night, a fast paced dance in our living room! Frustrations take an enormous amount of energy and I put everything I had into my little tantrum. I stood up, screamed AGGGGGGG and threw the remote in my hand to the floor. It was over before the remote had even bounced and shattered. I didn't see that emotional explosion coming; I just felt the release.
The remote felt the release too; shattered case, motherboard separated and menu board lying 3 feet away. Not pretty. Not demure. Not acceptable. But there you have it, I lost control. I don't like this person I have become.
Life is a process and I have to trust that day-to-day, hour-to hour all those seemingly unrelated happenings are really interlocking in my psyche. Sometimes they orchestrate themselves into a beautiful song, but last night it was more the horror movie with me as the lead. Sad, but true.
Do you know the phrase "make a silk purse out of a sow's ear"? That's the end of the story, but mostly not of my doing. The only part I can claim is my honesty. I marched into Spectrum when they opened today and told Brandon that in frustration I had thrown the remote on the floor. My eyes began to leak and momentarily my voice quivered, but I pulled myself together and shared that my frustration had grown through the day with my inability to master patience over Parkinson's disease. He shared with me that he had watched his very active uncle succumb to the disease. He immediately calmed me, cared for my situation, gave me a new remote, programmed so all I had to do was go home, unplug the system for 5 minutes, plug it back in and voila!
I just watched our streamed church service (Covid) titled "Resilient Relationships"; so very timely. Jeff gave 3 rules to live by:
- Choose to do the loving thing every day
- Practice empathy
- It's OK to not be OK
Brandon practiced all those with me, making me leave the store with renewed hope...we can do this!