Choices

I've been going to church lately. The people who know me would never suspect me of something as crazy as "church-going," but rest assured, it's a Universalist Unitarian church. It's as benign as they come, as far as judgment goes. Anybody can believe anything, including nothing, and still be accepted with their views respected.

I love my church.

On Sunday, the service was about love, since it was Valentine's Day. There were several speakers during the service, talking about their personal experiences with love from different perspectives: love of a parent, love of a child, love of a spouse, and love of others. The woman who spoke of the love of a spouse struck me the most. She was from Iowa, as I am, and moved to Riverside with her husband, an engineer. She is college educated, but chose to stay home and raise her children. When their children were older, she and her husband started their own business, and began working together. I've been thinking a lot about her story today because I had a really crappy day, and she had some interesting things to say about love, especially as it pertains to her marriage to her husband, which has lasted more than 50 years.

She said that it's all a choice. Love is a choice, patience is a choice and kindness is a choice. Likewise, hate is a choice, shortness of temper is a choice, and sarcasm is a choice.

I don't know if love is a choice when it comes to our own children, but it certainly is a choice when it comes to everyone else. And patience, kindness, hate, shortness of temper and sarcasm are choices no matter who we're talking about.

Boy, did I make the wrong choices today. Shortness of temper was my downfall. I suppose hate counts too, because I really hated my vacuum cleaner today. Even more when my husband came home and it worked fine for him. He thought it was a conspiracy...

For me, shortness of temper leads to anger. Which makes it so I can't sleep, I deepen the wrinkles between my eyebrows, and grind my teeth. My husband is the PERSON who bears the brunt of it, but my dogs are effected by my anger, even though it's not directed at them. I don't like to say "I lost my temper," as if it wandered off somewhere. That's just a cop-out. I prefer to be in control of my own emotions, although anger hardly seems to be the right choice for having it together.

Now, I'm not generally a raving lunatic. I just had a bad day, and let poor choices get the better of me. It happens to all of us sometimes. But instead of letting this really crappy day and my really crappy reaction to it linger out there in space, I'm going to do something with it. I learned a little bit, that I hope to put into practice tomorrow. Tomorrow, I want to choose love. For me, when I choose love, patience and kindness come along for the ride. I'm going to choose love, so I can cut myself a little slack and just roll with the punches. I think everybody in my life will be happier then.

My mom always used to tell me, "Patience is a virtue." That REALLY used to piss me off. She was right. But it's a moral excellence that is chosen by the user. Not one that just falls in one's lap.

Goodnight.