Feeling It

Every muscle in my body aches - the beds in front are big, and since big means clearing sod, and clearing sod, for me, means sitting and peeling it up when I can, hacking out the roots with a trowel until will peel back when I can't, I have used parts of my torso I didn't even know could be used (at least to this extent). Every emotion in my psyche aches, too - over the weekend Head Trip and Princess moved back in, temporarily, with little fanfare (or warning) but with much drama, and feelings I didn't know even existed any more have made themselves right at home, right beside her.

Panic, for instance. I woke at 3 am Friday night in a cold sweat, my stomach in knots, because I was imagining what was going to happen to her. She's not great with money, or at least she hasn't been great in the past (though she's come far). And for many, many reasons I knew that we would not help her out again, not in the way she assumed we would in my frightening vision of the future. I kept seeing homeless shelters (with Princess in tow) and evictions and bankruptcy and ... well, you get the picture.

Frustration, too. I suddenly realized I was about to face a request for the kind of assistance the Big Lug and I had not only decided was destructive rather than helpful, but because my business is slow and our money is tied up in IRAs and credit paydowns we might not be able to give it anyway.

Relief from the latter quickly followed.

The next morning, shame spread like an algae bloom. Here was my daughter, leaving a truly bad situation, and I was neither pleased that she'd lasted so long in it nor that she was standing up for herself. And when I found out that she not only had a plan but that it didn't involve us nearly as much as I thought it would - and she was amazingly swift in implementing it - I didn't feel the pride in her that I should. Heck, I wasn't even thinking about her at all. No, it was all about the burden I was going to bear in this. It was all about me.

Guilt began its assault.

Then I talked to Acid Trip, who was going to spend the afternoon helping her pack. He, too, had guilt about not being able to help her with the bulk of it on Sunday because of prior commitments. I stayed calm and rational as he (basically) escalated while he tried to ... not really decide between his wife (her plans) and his sister (her possible needs) as much as how to make them both happy (while also finding it all unreasonable). His voice was on the rise, so I told him to just slow down and think, and then, in my sleep-deprived stupor, I said a strange thing.

"Feelings make a great weather vane, sweetie, but a lousy compass."

Silence, as (apparently) befits a message from the gods, fell. "What?" I said into the lull, a bit defensively. Truthfully, I hadn't even heard my own mouth. He repeated it, with a touch of awe. I almost laughed. What kind of psychobabble crap was it, anyway? Was I that high on lack-of-sleep fumes?

But since he took it seriously, I did, too. And it was ... well, it turned out to be a pretty good summary of the secret to life, as I'd learned it over the last twenty years. Emotions, as I know all too well, are fair-weather, changeable beasts, influenced by hormones, food, past events, current situations, stress - hell, even a rainy day can change most moods. I've learned (I've had to) that I am at my best when I listen to but don't give in to my feelings.

It wasn't always that way (which you know). Once upon a time, I did whatever I felt like doing - bought what I felt like buying, loved when I felt like loving, cleaned when I felt like cleaning, yelled when I felt like yelling, even worked when I felt like working. In fact, I lived like many people live today, knowing without a doubt that it's my right to do or say what I want when I want and damn the consequences.

Y'know what? I felt like doing the fun stuff a lot more often than the responsible stuff. And it led to to debt, depression, and almost divorce. I had to learn self-control, which meant that I learned that feelings exist for many reasons - warning, need, reinforcement, even critical mass - but that the emotion, by itself, wasn't enough to make a decision for more than that moment. Panic could mean danger (run!), or it could mean hidden depression, righteous indignation, or "protect at all costs." In Head Trip's case, swept away by the unthinking tide, I'd been known to "protect" her into a corner she couldn't get out of, to righteously judge her into retaliation, and to "help" her until she was swathed like a mummy. I had to learn that doing the right thing takes brains, not emotions.

Feelings are weather vanes, not compasses all right, there to help us see which way the wind's blowing, help us adjust our course, or even tell us to hunker down for awhile. But wisdom, conscience, and logic should be the drivers because these guys think ahead. If we focus on what we know instead of what we feel, we will make decisions that we can be happy about for life, not just for the moment.

So I offered HT a bed for the week (longer for Princess, which gives HT more options until May), a month of storage in her area (rather than in my basement), and food and babysitting galore. I slept better Saturday night, for sure.

If Wall Street (and Congress) would learn this lesson so would we all.