Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Mr. Crankypants

I don’t know if this is true of others – barring reincarnations I’m unaware of, I’ve only been me, after all – but I am quite often a cranky person.
 
Because I know this about myself, and because I believe so strongly in treating people as well as I’m able, I’m able to keep this aspect of my personality subsumed most of the time.  If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I often joke about feeling cranky or grumpy.   But it’s not really joking – talking about feeling grumpy is part of how I keep from expressing it in more harmful ways.
 
To some extent, crankiness is a function of the depression I’ve written about previously.  But I think it’s also who I am.  So many things annoy me, and even I recognize that many of them are silly.  (The fellow in the next cubicle over likes to give his stapler a good firm thwack when he uses it – how dare he!.  C’mon, Bob, get a life!)
 
When I’m feeling cranky, I get irritated by loud noises, irregular noises, crowding, getting jostled, almost getting run over (wait, that one’s reasonable!), my phone ringing, stupid opinions, these kids today, and the prophecies of Nostradamus.  As I age, the word “curmudgeon” has been known to show up in descriptions of me.  Can I help it that I have Andy Rooney eyebrows?  Someday I’m going to have to get a place with a lawn just so that I can yell at little kids to get off of it.  (A corner lot is probably the best value in that respect.  Even when the kids aren’t actually ON my lawn, I could fume about the “cow path”.)  OK, I really wouldn't yell at little kids.  But apartment living might be a good plan anyway.  :)

But seriously, folks.
Is this a huge problem for me?  Well, no.  As I said, I'm pretty good at keeping it from showing, or at least from snapping at people.  But it is another way that a good day can go bad, creating a spiral that I don't often know how to turn around. 
 
I have, by the way, checked to see if there are weird blood sugars behind these moods.  Alas, there's no excuse in THAT area.

I do find that meditation (or focused breathing, as I sometimes call it) sometimes helps.  It would probably help a lot more if I practiced more regularly. 


Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll close this post -- that ice cream truck is making me NUTS!

5 comments:

  1. Dude... I'm old and cranky too. I find it helps to just not give an eff. For me, my crankiness escalates when my depression deepens. I just want to be left alone and that is a perfectly normal defense mechanism. It's hard to do, but it helps me to just have some inane conversation and a grin with someone

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  2. You're not alone, Bob. You might not believe it, but I deal with the same issues. Like you, I'm good at hiding it. Well, most days anyway. :)

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  3. Oh my gosh, you sound just like me!! (Really, my husband will be more than happy to attest to my crankiness.) Just the mere sound of someone popping their gum is enough to make me want to rip their head off!!

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  4. Miss Crankypants here.
    I Hate, Despise, Loathe the ice cream truck. That music makes me want to borrow my Dad's 12 gauge.

    As far as loud noises, I want to scream to drown it out.....bugs the crap out of me. But, it's partly because of damaged hearing from years of ear infections when I was a teen. My years are very sensitive.

    And the depression. Sound makes me more depressed. All I want is to hide from it all.

    Like Scott said, inane convo helps a lot.

    Oh and good at hiding it? Yeah, expert here. :-)

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  5. I'm right there with ya, and all my friends above!

    My crankiness is certainly attached to my depression. When I'm off my meds for any length of time, I am a pure tornado to be around.

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T Minus Two by Bob Pedersen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.