Ruminations

As I think about my life, I realize I’m like a great many other people. Life is not simple and it’s not complicated; it’s both. A lot of good, a lot of bad, and a lot of in-between. What we make of life is mostly governed by our ruminations. Somewhere along the line, if we stop long enough to think about it, we subconsciously are choosing how we are going to face each new day.

This week I experienced agitation causing my heart to race into frustrated anger. Coming out of CVS I returned to my car to find the driver’s side maybe 4 inches away from a car parked next to it. After two recent total hip replacement surgeries I wasn’t about to enter the other side of my car and try to climb over the middle console. (I’m 80 years old, for god’s sake!)

I was pinned in and forced to wait until the driver of said vehicle returned. Exasperated, at the suggestion of the driver of a nearby car I took a snapshot of the offending car’s license plate and went back inside CVS to ask that the owner be paged if in the store. No one came forward. Back outside my irritation mounted. CVS was one of multiple stores along the block and the owner might not be returning anytime soon.

Hyperventilating slightly, I asked a couple of random people to witness my dilemma, as if that was going to help. Both were sympathetic but offered no assistance. My emotions found mental blame for my predicament in the deteriorating attitudes rampant today caused by factious political parties and their ill-mannered, arrogant leaders.  People are growing increasingly entitled, deserving of first-in-line consideration. It’s down the rabbit hole from there.

She appeared some minutes later: a smallish, nondescript, forty-something woman, a brown paper bag in hand. As she made her way to the offending vehicle, I called out to her. “Is that your car?” She stopped, looked at me questioningly and replied, “Yes.”

“Look how close you parked to me,” I said accusingly. “What in the world were you thinking?”

“The car next to me was too close,” she answered. As if that should settle everything. She turned away from me, offering no apology.

“I had to wait for you!” I finished, stunned at her apparent ambivalence. “Please be more careful next time.”

As she slowly backed out of her parking spot, I watched to make sure she didn’t scrape my car. Then she was gone, the altercation ended. My stomach churning, I was slightly nauseated for a few hours. What surprised me was how out-of-character I felt I’d been, at least how I mostly viewed myself. Mulling over things I realized I let accumulated ruminations over the continuing bad behaviors of headlining men and women affect my personal equilibrium. Like a pot hovering near the boiling point, it only took a minor incident for indignity to spill over, scalding mostly myself. Inside my head I heard my own admonition:“Please be more careful next time.”