I know you know this one: “The state of being equal parts pissed off and mystified at the same time..."
I think I used to be pisstified a lot. Less and less now. I spend more and more time shaking my head in disbelief that I just saw what I saw or heard what I heard...
As a rule, I am far less angry as I age. I am not sure if that is just because I have less energy and what I do have left, I just don’t want to spend it on being upset or disturbed.
This is not to say that I don’t sometimes still go there...and it is a nothing destination. I am not happy and neither is anyone else. So I do my best to not go there as often as I can anymore.
I am learning that angry, at least for me, is always scared’s cover. I am really only angry when afraid. I am not sure that I have ever been really angry in my life, just fucking terrified most of the time.
Pissed off has this quality, at least to me, of arrogance. Like it is all ego. “I AM SO PISSED OFF ABOUT...” Just smacks of ego’s ugly defiance that somehow what is going on should be different.
And even with all of this growth, I still can just be living my life, and there it is anger, which I just told you is fear. My ego can take a lot because I have worked really hard to keep that fucker in check. But without warning, she emerges from the depths of a place in my heart that I continually forget is there and BOOM! Ego Erin is running shit.
Happened yesterday in a parking lot. This woman was in a hurry and was making her agenda known. She wanted me to hurry up and then she parked her car in such a way that I could not accommodate her because she was in the way. I waited for her to move so that I could back out and get out of her way. She threw up her hands at me, like I was the idiot fouling it all up. And right on time, there was my ego. Ready to give her the finger or worse. I was pisstified. Irritated that she was blaming me for her behavior and mystified as to how we got to this standoff in the Trader Joe’s parking lot.
She finally figured it out. And of course, she didn’t give any indication that she was sorry that she was the one who caused this whole debacle. Nope. Just pulled right into her parking space and then acted like everything was fine with the world.
My ego was not at all happy with this and thought that perhaps we should re-park and explain this whole situation to her. I said no, firmly because that is the only way my ego will ever listen.
Nope, I let go of all my pisstification and moved the fuck on with my day. She a tiny blip on the screen of my daily life.
So why am I writing about her?
Because once upon a time, that lady would have gotten me! I would have lost my shit, I would have gestured lots of things and likely said some more. I have never been a “get out of your car and dance” kind of person but that is only because I do not like jails. (Bar room brawls are another story...)
I would like to say that I have just arrived at this new place of being and living that is capable of rising above the fray. But the truth be told it has taken me a lot of fucking work to arrive at a place when someone who is acting like she was yesterday has only momentary power over me. It has taken my lifetime to arrive at a place where I can see the hook she is throwing my way, and be super clear that I do not want to bite it.
Today I am grateful that while I am not and will never be perfect, I am capable of choosing that being pisstified isn’t how I want to spend my time. Life is too short and my time way too precious.
I left our encounter really just mystified...about how we humans seem to so easily miss the point of living. Choosing to get our dander up in a defensive, life draining manner. I wasted a lot of time doing that and as the events of yesterday show, I can still go there. It is always available to me. But because of the work I do and continue to do, I get reprieves. I get to be someone new and different, no longer a slave to my almighty ego.
We can go through life pisstified, or we can go through happy. It is always our choice.