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Wrench Dodging

  Want to know what I love about righteous anger? It's right. Or perhaps I can convince myself that I have every "right" to be angry. That there is justification. Often, I spout with my mouth that I am a firm believer in, "You are entitled to your feelings." And perhaps, somewhere down deep, I actually believe it. But, sometimes, I think people feel things just to feel them. Or perhaps they take fleeting thoughts and turn them into actual feelings. It goes too well with the "filter-less" and ever popular "I am offended" society" that we live in.
  Is any of this making sense? This year has been a constant game of emotional dodge ball. I find myself often practicing the 5 D's "dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge." I mean...if I can "dodge a wrench I can dodge a ball" right? Lately it just seems that there are more wrenches than balls being thrown, and it is taking its toll.
  I can't even take all the credit. I mean I haven't even been doing the straight dodging. It's more like, my friend is dealing with (blank) fucking dodge. My FiL is dealing with (blank) fucking dip. My husband is dealing with (blank) fucking duck. My mother is dealing with (blank) fucking dive. My family is dealing with (blank) fucking dodge again...And when the wrenches fly...I can't help but dodge as well.
  It's exhausting. And it doesn't seem like any of it is going to stop or slow down soon. It's becoming quite unbearable. Perhaps the worst part, these aren't little wrenches. These are life-freaking-altering wrenches. The big kind. The kind they use on some massive oil rig out in the Pacific, and everyone I know is bleeding from nicks where the wrench hit them because they couldn't dodge fast enough. I fear that I don't have enough triage experience or sympathetic bandages to help...
  I feel useless. I feel helpless, and I feel so much irritation toward everyone out there, even people I know and talk to on the daily who have it easy, or perhaps "easy comparatively." I should care that you had it rough at work yesterday because the stress was getting to you. Yeah, I don't. I will only pretend to because actually telling you I don't care isn't kind, and I tend to act out those unkind things in my head so that I don't have to pay the consequences of actually nicking you with a wrench I just dodged.
  My family has moments of sanity where they aren't completely consumed with the reality of their world. It is fleeting, but sometimes it comes in a meme or a show or a conversation about something totally useless. But those fleeting moments are just brief respites. I think we could use more of those. Life has beaten us down...big time. So, when you see a smile on a face of someone I love, offer a prayer of thanks in between a prayer for strength. Thanks...

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