Midlife Madness

We all know it that when we are low in resilience things we can usually cope with somehow seem too much for us. We might end up snapping at people, gesticulating out of the window if someone upsets us on the road – or demonstrating numerous other less than ideal behaviours.

It all happens of course because we are human! As such we have those things called emotions! Less than perfect perhaps but that’s good. We weren’t built to be robots so we live in a world where we may be upset by all sorts of things and each of us might be on our own personal journey in terms of how we try to maintain our equilibrium faced with the unfairness of life or the feeling that there is a vindictive ‘power’ who seems to have made it their personal mission to make our lives a misery.

As you know I’m a positive person, I try to look on the bright side of life but sometimes I have to confess it is very, very, tough. Also, the problem with constantly being Miss Positive Pants is its exhausting and let’s be honest if we have emotions, from what I’ve read, its best we let them out!

It’s how we do that without ruining relationships- there are only so many near miss, flying crockery experiences that a loved one (or indeed a casual acquaintance) can cope with – or hurting ourselves – please take it from me punching walls or kicking cars are likely to hurt us much more than them – after all they are inanimate objects so it goes without saying really.

One of my real button pushers is my computer – like the girl with curl right in the middle of her forehead, when it works fine it is very, very good when it doesn’t work well, it is horrid and I have so far (can’t promise I’ll maintain this) managed to avoid throwing it out the window or against the wall which is good – as I rather rely on it.

But on a much milder scale without causing actual bodily harm we can certainly find all sorts of ways to communicate our displeasure at what life is dealing us. I must confess I am a master at the cold hard stare, over even the shoulder shrugging ‘fine’ said in that way (you know the way that says you are definitely not fine, but they are going to have to work hard to find out what is really going on).

Then there is the sarcastic approach sort of pretending to be fine but the smiles are a bit too much you might even be asking about them but there will be no doubt that you are most definitely NOT fine. The more honest approaches can also be effective – for example saying quite definitely ‘don’t be nice to me’ and we all know what happens to those foolish enough to be nice! A fortune spent in tissues and for us make up sliding all over the place – eyes red and nose running –never a good look.

As humans we will react in different ways on different days so we need a whole repertoire of responses to the varying irritating, frustrating, or disappointing things that happen to disquiet us.

I’ve chosen this path a few times and what I find most straightforward is simply to tell those who need to know that I may be a bit fragile. I may divulge the reasons or I may not – this particular ball is in my court and so therefore it is up to me what I do and don’t divulge. But it doesn’t end there. There are different sorts of fragility. There are days when I may be fragile like a flower. I bend to the adversity; my petals may fall or droop. But, and here is the rub, there are other times when yes, I am fragile but not like a flower, more like a bomb. On those days the