Dammit

Sometime Saturday night, my car was broken into (without, fortunately, breaking anything) and rifled through.

Nothing of import was in the car, and nothing is missing except the dome light bulb the jackass took out so no one would see him, but my car's a mess. And I feel icky. And it reeks of cigarettes.

I can't even imagine doing something like that to another person's possessions. What kind of asshole do you have to be to think nothing of such an act?

Shadows of my past

When I was a kid, my mother yelled. A lot. At me, at my siblings, at our father ... basically, she was almost always yelling.

The result of this is that I hate being yelled at. It makes me feel like a little kid again, with La Vada standing over me, angry, even though she's been dead for fifteen years. And then I get angry -- it doesn't matter whether I deserve their anger or not; I get defensive and angry.

It's not just about someone yelling at me because they're mad at me, either. Any voice yelling makes my head spin, and someone yelling at someone else makes me almost as angry as if I'm their target.

Here's where it gets weird: It doesn't even have to be loud. I define "yelling" as any words spoken in anger, whether they're shouted at me or said at normal volume but with an angry tone. I know that's not the right definition, of course, but knowing it and my emotional association are not the same thing.

Herein lies the problem: When Elli gets upset or frustrated, she gets loud. She does what I define as yelling, even if there is no anger in it. And I have to learn that that doesn't mean she's mad at me (not always, anyway) and even when she is mad at me, I have to remember she loves me and isn't going to hurt me. I have to learn to overcome the associations with my past, and move out of their shadow. Most of all, I have to learn that I am not that child, cowering from his mother's unwarranted anger and hatred, anymore.

It isn't easy. Nothing worth doing ever is, I suppose.