An Impactful Loving Life

"It's true that love can change us
Never quite enough
Sometimes we are too tender
Sometimes we're too tough..."

—Rush, Emotion Detector

They forgot the onion rings. I had gone out to pick up some take-out food for the family, and when I went through a fast food drive-thru, I decided to stop in the parking lot to check the order. Sure enough, the onion rings weren't there. No problem. I went through again and they gave me the onion rings they had forgotten, but as I drove away, I ate one of the fries. It was soft and cold. Ugh. I went through the drive-thru again, and they gave me hot and crispy fries. They were pleasant and I thanked them. 

Our oldest daughter Beatrice also wanted a shake. The fast food place weren't making shakes for whatever reason, so I had to go to another place to get one. The person helping me literally rolled their eyes and sighed when I asked for a strawberry shake. They made it for me, and considering there was no one else in the establishment, I didn't understand the attitude. I thanked them and left.

After going to the third place to get my wife and me our favorite weekly taqueria meal, which went fine (they know us well there), I was frustrated from having to go to so many different places to get my family food, something I've done many times in the past without incident. This time it just made me mad for taking so long and I knew the food would be cold (which some of it was). When I got home I announced to my wife and two daughters:

"I'm never going out to get food again."

Of course, I didn't mean it. I was just frustrated and triggered for no good reason really. After whining about it for a bit, I realized how bad it all sounded, and I apologized. First of all, I was more than grateful that we were able to get any kind of food we want to begin with whenever we wanted. My wife concurred. I also told them all that restaurants of all types have struggled to stay open and stay staffed during the pandemic and continue to struggle. I wasn't rude to these different eatery employees, but too many consumers have been the past two years; it can be such a thankless job for what minimum wage pays. And even with wages increasing more in the past year than the past time for the lowest wage earners, inflation continues to eat away any gains they may have had.

That last part I thought better about digressing on, sensing my family didn't want an economics lecture. But my grumpy reaction to just going out to pick up food did remind me of our weekly family meetings where, among many important dynamics, we cover:

• Managing emotions
• Positive communications
• Providing support

What happened reminded me that we're all easily triggered, and although we should be more responsible for how we react in any situation, it ain't as easy as the being triggered part. In fact, there are too many people struggling these days -- mentally, emotionally, spiritually -- all the -ally's for that matter. As the pandemic continues to turn us upside down, keeping our communication with each other positive and supportive can be difficult to sustain. 

As my wife and I have learned from reading researcher Brené Brown, someone who's studied courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy for the past two decades, being vulnerable with each other and staying positive and supportive in the moment is hard. Armoring up and lashing out is the unfortunate easy-button default setting we keep powered on. 

We can rewire this default setting. We really can. Our family works on it every day of every week. It's not always easy, but mercy me it makes for an impactful loving life.