A public confession and an observation

Published on myspace on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007

Alex Brodine deserves a silver medal for living with me and the gold for loving me. Let me tell you: I can be a roller coaster ride.
So, here is the confession part. Last night I flipped out on my dear husband over my expectation of our schedule which was not met. Flipped out meaning: lost my temper, chewed him out, gave him the cold shoulder, sent many YOU messages rather than I messages in communicating the disappointment. I am not exaggerating here people. I begged God to give me grace to talk through it, which he did quite a while later.
Anyway, I apologized. He forgave me. And, just for the record this is not the first time I have done this. And, unless God does something radical I am sure it will not be the last (I am not excusing myself). This brings me to my observation and I welcome your comments. This is not a joke and it is not meant to poke fun at anyone. I am just wondering if anyone else has had this experience or has known people who have.
My dad was bi-polar. He was EXTREMELY compulsive about time. He set our clocks to the official national time. I can't even remember how he got it, some chime thing. Anyway, one of the many slogans in our house was (especially when we were running behind), "you wait on other people, they don't wait on you". When we visited G'ma and G'pa's house on the way there we would discuss what time we were leaving. Let's say mom said 6 p.m. My dad would be in the car blowing the horn at 6:01. No joke. As part of our family devotions we had a planning session every night talking about the upcoming week which starting in about August included the bonus question, "do you have any ideas for us about what you might like for Christmas?"
O.K., now as I am going through life I am meeting other adult children of people who have had a mental illness or who are mentally ill themselves and I am noticing that many of us take time very seriously. There are extremes to that statement (I do not put myself into that extreme of a category, I am worrying about what you will all think of me). And, time is a real stresser at times. Why is that? Is is conditioning? It is a control problem? Or is it just quirky personality traits? I think this really is something to be explored at least for my own family's sake? It seemed like people in Sudan didn't struggle with this problem as much as we driven Americans.
I think I have a built in clock in my head. I always have a great sense of time and it kills me to run late. I know God put me with Alex on purpose. His family orientation in regard to time is extremely relaxed. I need Alex and I think he could use me too. God have mercy on us as we become more Christlike.

Currently reading : Scarlet (The King Raven Trilogy, Book 2) By Stephen R. Lawhead Release date: 18 September, 2007