Friday, November 28, 2003

Inhale Exhale

Right now I feel like I've just come in off a really hairy drive where it was sleeting and foggy. The adrenalin is wearing off from the stressful day that I had and my hands are shakey. The long and the short of it is that I had Thanksgiving dinner at friends of mine across town and it was apparently a much more wearing experience then I expected.

I was prepared for a certain amount of chaos since they have (3) excitable dogs and (2) young kids. The dogs are easy enough to deal with because they eventually settle down once they've greeted me. The kids, likewise, tend to be well behaved once they get over the excitement of visitors. (In general, kids want to be noticed by a visitor; so they will sometimes become boisterous as a way of getting the visitor's attention.)

As for the other people who were invited... well, it's a largish family with a few boys and a daughter and the boys are very competitive about jockeying for position. I choose not to itemize their flaws here, but there were numerous arguments throughout the afternoon, and family members who I expected to be mature and rise above the fray sometimes (often?) added to the chaos with verbal attacks.

My reaction was basically to internalize, keep a pleasant disposition, and make sure that I did nothing to escalate any of the various events. As a guest, and having just met the other family today, I decided that any intervention / interference on my part would have zero effect and that it would be better to be the placid example of calm. Leaving early would have been rather difficult because that would have added ammo to be used by the various parties ("look! you're so bad that you made their guest leave early!" ... and other varied dirty methods of fighting).

I actually thought that I was taking it quite well, letting it roll off my back like water off a duck's back, until I went to shuffle the deck of cards during the after-dinner card game. That's when I suddenly discovered that my hands were shaking from the stress. And now, 3 hours after I left I'm finding how just how emotionally drained I truly am. Ragged enough to be close to weeping, which I find surprising because I'm not sure what cause I would have to weep. More like my emotional control is extremely frayed, much like some of the more sorrowful events of my past.

I know my friends are going to check my reaction in a few days, and I have not yet come to terms with what exactly I will or won't say.

posted by Wuphon's at 12:59 AM