Control

A couple of days ago, my mind was full of bother. I was facing situations that I intensely disliked and worrying about how to cope with them.

The most important one was completely beyond my control, I could do nothing but wait for events to unfold.

The second one was a financial situation with close, daily social consequences. It was the trickiest and I was contemplating a hit and run approach.

The third had to do with a close relative, and family protocol pretty much had my hands tied. He had asked if we had a bed to spare for a short stay while he visited a hospitalized sibling. Not that I could have refused under any circumstances, but we had recently stayed at his home for several nights. That it was a visit I did not enjoy, and felt obligated to make was completely beside the point.

The very next day, the problems start vanishing one by one.

A knock on the door in the morning took care of the tricky financial/social problem and brought a surprised smile to my face.

A phone call in the afternoon brought the best news one could possibly hope for regarding the most important one.

And late that night, it seemed the dreaded relative would not materialize after all.

As though I would not have been more than thrilled to have all of my problems solved within approximately 12 hours, I received a phone call telling me of a several hundred dollar windfall which it had never even occurred to me to expect.

Wow.

What a freaking day.

24 hours later, I'm still marveling and giving thanks for my good fortune.

But there's a slight, niggling burr of unpleasantness marring my wonderful feeling of well being...the dreaded relative.

Although I did not have to suffer having him in our home, I did have to spend a couple of hours in his company yesterday. He treated my mother and me to lunch.

This was not unbearable, the man is not a monster. And yet, I consider him toxic. Tonight, looking on the bright side, I was feeling thankful that we did not live remotely near each other and our phone calls were usually about things that didn't rankle. I decided I would just take control of how much I allowed him into my life and limit my contact with him to the absolute minimum.

For some reason, though, his offensiveness lingers, like a bad aftertaste. I often find him in my head at his most obnoxious, so much crap I come across online reminds me of him. How can I be giving so much space in my head, and in my life, to someone I'd like to forget? Okay, I've figured out how to keep him out of my life. So why can't I figure out how to keep him out of my head?

Mind control. I need it. Badly.

Because it just strikes me as being completely stupid that life is generously handing me armfuls of win and I am sabotaging my own contentment with thoughts of people on the very fringe of my existence.

I am SO doing this wrong.