mere_christianity epitome of incomprehensibility ...has led to too much drama recently, stuff that I thought was over in spring 2020. I mean the book by C.S. Lewis. The rest is more than Christianity - a religion that's downright understandable compared to people's personal peculiarities. Briefly, my parents are Christians and would prefer my boyfriend to be one too. He isn't. He wasn't raised that way. This year, for Christmas, Mom had the idea to give C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity to him, and the present was listed as coming from both my parents. When he opened it, I tried to hide my awkwardness and explain my not-so-pleased expression by going, "But that doesn't seem very interesting. I like 'Till We Have Faces' better." And he defended it, going, "Oh, actually, no, I read this in high school but I don't have a copy. We read this and the Screwtape Letters. So it will be good to have one, thank you." But something about that still bugged me, and the next day, when David and I were out driving and looking for a place to have lunch, finding most places in Valois Village closed (it was the 28th, since my family had done Christmas on the 27th), it came out with my kind of frustrated irrationality. I said they shouldn't have done that, and while he said, "I can see being annoyed at their intent, but it's not like it's something I don't want" - he gets emotional, even to the point of tears, at the idea of people getting presents they don't want - he saw I was annoyed with other things and wanted to know what. We were walking through the snow, a straight sober line, but my train of thought veered off oddly: "I'm not like them, I can't just believe in things I don't know about, but I'm not like you either, since I don't like reading abstract things. I don't like theory. It's boring. I'm sorry, but it is. You'll think I'm anti-intellectual, but I prefer things with stories in them." His smile: sympathetic, slightly amused. "You just got an anthology of essays about syntax; isn't that theory? Don't you find it interesting?" "Sometimes. I don't know." We had found a place to eat, so I calmed down. Lunch is my religion. Afterwards, when he was driving us to Dorval Library to work there a bit before supper, anxiety replaced some of my frustration and I made some sort of worried gesture or noise. He asked what was wrong. "If I talk now, I'll be irrational," I warned. "I'll exaggerate, like I was doing before, and then you'll think I mean it." He thought about that, saying yes, you might do that, but isn't it better to get things out, even if you don't phrase them perfectly? "I don't want to live anymore," I said presently, which was in response to him taking a wrong turn because I hadn't given clear directions. He looked alarmed. "Don't say that." "I don't mean I want to kill myself or anything! It's just something I say if I'm unhappy. I told you I'll say things I don't mean. But maybe I shouldn't say that. It annoyed my parents." (Thought: why am I still acting like a child?) Then we found the right exit, so I regained my will to live. We had a calm hour in the library, reading and writing. And then I told my parents later how the book had caused me to tell David I didn't like theory. They didn't quite see the connection, but Dad talked to me by myself and apologized for not "warning" David about the gift beforehand. He admitted that it was Mom who had the idea, although my brother was against it, saying it would be "rude". He was sitting in his study and I stood just outside the door. I told him about my thoughts on March 2020, when I ran from an argument with Mom about David, anxious for some library time to calm the anger and anxiety. At first I thought of going to the Grande Bibliotheque, but then I realized with my last shred of sense that the JPL (Jewish Public Library) was closer to the creative-writing meetup I was going to that evening and I also had a library card for there, as of that January. So I went there...and touched nearly all the books in the for-sale section; I'm pretty sure the cold that manifested itself a couple of days later wasn't COVID, since it felt like any other cold, but this was just two weeks before things started shutting down, so I was taunted by sporadic thoughts that perhaps my book-touching was the cause of an early outbreak in the Cote-des-Neiges neighbourhood (apparently it was really people coming back from NYC). Then I wrote about what had just happened in my journal, for about three hours, entertaining thoughts of getting away from everybody - never talking to David again, never talking to my parents again. That'd show them! I looked at the wall of the library. THIS place was calm; perhaps I could convert to Judaism? But I thought I shouldn't; see, Aunt D. and Lia might find out and that might be embarrassing since they were already Jewish and not particularly religious. And the silliness of that reason brought me back to logical thoughts: I couldn't stop talking to everyone. Not because I was a helpless bundle of anxiety, or not just, but because it wouldn't be fair to them. Going forward, I would do better. Not get angry about little things, even if people were being unfair or narrow-minded sometimes. But this past holiday. And today, with "frustration," letting my grumpiness spill over to others. All right, I admit: I have an anger problem. I've admitted that before. I seem to be getting better slowly, but I keep relapsing. How do I stop my anger from bothering others?? It's not quite like the addiction problem tender_square described in "terri"...and which makes me sad to read, because I know her past trauma is affecting this and because the addiction might make her seem manipulative when things are somewhat out of her control...but at the same time I feel angry at her for giving her sisters such, such, such a hard time...and this is nobody I know directly!! (But great writing, as usual. I'm easily sidetracked, but ALL the waves of encouragement for this and other heartaches.) Anyway, the similarity is the idea of both being in control and out of control. Sometimes if I exert more effort when I have more control, it saves me from getting out-of-control later and saying things I regret. But sometimes when I control myself in the moment, the thoughts I'm thinking spill out later, like when I told Mom I didn't want the sweater she got me. I must believe, if I believe in anything, that I have it in myself to approach difficult topics in a calm way. I know that in theory. I've done it when I'm in public. I can't let my parents and later David be grumble-targets, targets for frustrations that might not have anything to do with them. I need to start treating my family like people, because they DO extend the same courtesy to me, guilt-tripping and unsubtle Mere Christianity aside. 220113 ... e_o_i Weaponized. Me: "I forgive you." Mom: "I didn't do anything wrong." Me: "We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." No, I didn't say that. That's just for the movie script. 220213 what's it to you? who go blather from