Unexpected Evening

Source; Wikimedia Licensed for reuse. Click pic for page.

Tonight, well, last night now since it’s 1:14AM, was unexpected. Not the evening so much as the end of the evening.  My father broke his ankle some time ago and I watched over him while Mom and Sis went to Indianapolis.  I brought my laptop, intending to write a new story, but I got sidetracked (did I sound surprised? Didn’t think so.) and ended up watching the last two episodes of “The Witches of East Side”, Season 1″ on Netflix and 1/2 an episode of “Turn” (2nd episode, Season 1).  When they got home around 10:30pm, I shut off Netflix and powered down my laptop.  That’s when the evening went unexpected.  I knew there were going to be updates.  I hadn’t used my laptop in some time and it has been updating whenever I shut it down.  This time, however, the “loading 1 of 153 updates” was not met with a smile from me because, following that was a “do not shutdown or power off your computer” message that had me staying there until 12:50PM when it finished and shutdown.

I spent the time reading my Nora Roberts’ novel “Calculating in Death”, so it was not a wasted time, but I wanted to be home doing other “home” things.  Then, to simply add to it, I remembered as I walked out the door, that I have somewhere to be in the morning.  So, there goes that time, too.

In trying to figure out how to make good out of bad, or decent out of not-so-decent, I decided to do a post on tonight and how I felt.  I don’t usually feel rushed anymore.  Since the stroke, I take my time, do things as they come and do not get pressured or bothered by waiting.  This, however, for some reason, really irritated me.  Even sitting here now, I cannot figure out quite what was bothering me so much, though I have some ideas.

I think a lot of it is simple.  I just wanted to be home and have more choices as to what I could do when my laptop was unavailable.  For instance, I could simply go to my desktop PC and work or play.  That is what I would have done, normally.  If you add to it that my home computer would have done the 2.4 hours of work in about 15-20 minutes, you can see why I was unhappy.  I would have had time and availability to do a load of dishes, clean up something, read in the comfort of my bed, or to be practical, taken a shower to get ready for tomorrow.  Was I really put out?  Nope, not much.  But, I am used to doing things at my pace and in my own way and that was messed up.

That brings me to the point of this entire post.  When things don’t go our way, we often get upset, short-tempered, or whatever else.  My question now is, why?  It wasn’t that big of a deal.  I no longer work, so whatever I don’t get done tonight, I can do tomorrow.  I have a story deadline, but it is far enough off that I won’t have any problems finishing it.  It just ends up being spoiled…me, that is.  I am “used” to doing thing my way.  So, when it gets a bit out of shape for me, I get upset.  Seems a bit petty.  In fact, it seems a lot petty.  Made me think that if I am this petty over something small, what can others get like over big things and in more of a rush?

The whole thing has now humbled me a bit.  I am not the unshakeable person I made myself out to be.  It was bothering me tonight that it was bothering me.  I guess I can still step back and take a look cause there are things I still need to work on.

How about you?  How do you handle it when things don’t go right for you?

Namaste,

Scott