Petty Pete

Dear Diary,

I am worried about turning into a cranky, old man. The most trivial and stupid things have been annoying me, lately.

I am worried about becoming more like my father, one of the most negative and critical people I have known in my own life.

Last week, I saw a neighbor leave a shopping cart on our street after taking out the grocery bags to carry for the remaining half block to his own home. I asked him not to leave the cart on our street, but to push it to his own house. He pretended to do so before pushing it across the street to abandon on someone else's driveway.

Why does this bother me so much?

At the gym, people have been standing right in front of weight racks to do their arm curls or shoulder shrugs, often blocking access to the exact pair of barbells that I want to use. Sometimes they even stand right in front of me, blocking my own reflection in the mirror while I am in the middle of my own set. At least, then I can move to one side.

What is wrong with me that I am so easily irritated by behavior such as this? (As Margaret Cho says, "And if gay men had a period . . . what do you mean 'if?'")

As usual, there are several people around me with problems that are much bigger than mine. A blogger friend is surviving on the outskirts of the flooded areas in Iowa. A coworker has a nightmare of an alcoholic baby-daddy that is causing a lot of emotional damage to both herself and her daughter. A good friend has been in the hospital for the past week because she's been having labor contractions twenty-four weeks into her pregnancy. My own Domestic Partner was in pain all holiday weekend from a neglected tooth and his cheek was swollen from the infection.

So, as usual, I have no real reason to complain, and yet I feel very whiny. I don't even know, at times, if I can even attribute my negative moods to anything other than genes, my "emotional legacy," God help me.

Is this all a normal part of feeling a mid-life crisis? Or is this the person I'm going to be for the rest of my life? I certainly hope not. Minor as my problems are, I continue to make attempts at being proactive as an overall preventive measure. I went jogging last night. I went swimming today. I will continue working on my writing goals this week, slow as that has been lately. I know that I need to make more of an effort to spend time with friends in person, rather than continue to indulge in my addiction of online detachment.

I fervently believe that things could always be better and that we should make a constant effort to bring that about. But I also believe that things could always be worse, too, and that we should we should be grateful for how good things are.

I choose not to permanently stagnate, even if I have to take a break now and then.
That would be too much like giving up.