Of Melancholy and Laughter

I feel melancholy today.
Down right blue.
Bitchy, too.
Hormonal as all get out.
Sigh.

Last night's dream was of little girls being abandonded or abused
and although I was in the house with them
I couldn't do anything to protect them
although I tried.
Wretched living conditions.
Scary men.
Sleep didn't come until after 2 am.

Dearest one and I snarked at each other a bit today.
I managed to halt my snarkiness instead of feeding it.
Then I looked inward and took inventory.
What was my part?
That's the only part I can do anything about.
Ah.
Festering resentment
that should have been addressed
when I first started nursing it.
Or rather, should have been voiced instead of
feeding it at all.
What a concept.

I heard it said once that every time a person relives a resentment
their part gets smaller and the other person's gets bigger.
Yep.

One good thing that came out of today
is that I realized how very little I snark anymore.
Snarkiness used to be my modus operandi.
I had no other tools to deal with things that pissed me off
other than to let them build and release,
build and release.

It never occured to me that I could calmly,
without getting emotionally all het up,
simply state my need, observation, thought
and leave it at that.

I didn't have to make it all about me.
Or them.
And so it goes.

Today's mail brought a CD version of the radio documentary in all its fullness.
Also some books I bought with birthday money.
One called Telling Secrets.
Very fitting considering the content of the documentary.

Another book was one I have looked at for the past 4 years.
Now it's part of my own library.
It's a humourous little book called The Little Monk. Reading it was a good antidote for my melancholy. I sat and laughed outloud as I read each simple statement and the explanation in brackets of how the little monk came to write it. It's a book of fiction compiled of our common human experience. Here's some of my favourites, fitting considering my day:

"Keep in mind that living with you may serve as enough penance to get into heaven." (On a day of bitter words.)

"If you lose your face, persevere; if you lose your head, halt. (On a day jam packed with contradictions.)

Silence was made so that we can listen to God. When God speaks through his creatures, don't cut him off. (At the bedside of a brother who at old age had returned to talking like a little child.)