From a friend for further contemplation

I just had a thought. Why do we find it so hard to say we don't like people? So often, it seems like we feel we have to have justification for not getting along with someone else. We decide they're a "drama queen," "passive aggressive," "narcissistic," "fill in the blank," therefore we (and by extension others) should be justified for not liking them because they're a Bad Person.

Wouldn't it be easier to simply say, "Yeah, X. We don't mesh," and move on? What weird masochistic streak makes us get to the point where we have to be supremely irritated and/or angry with someone all the time before we're ready to admit that, perhaps, our personalities just don't cohere? And I do say us because I'm as guilty of this as anyone else.

It's interesting how I can stand back and look at interpersonal relationship problems now with the realization that 99% of them aren't personal, they're personality. If that makes sense. I couldn't see that before.

An unmistakable trait of every true genius, is their persistent awareness of how much more there is to know. And an unmistakable trait of every true sage is their persistent awareness of how much more there is to love.

Dad fell this morning

not bad fall, says he stood up and just fell over. He fell toward the wall, bumped his head and has a pain in the right rib where he tried to stop himself and strained that side. I managed to get him standing (that was a challenge and puts me in mind to weight lift!) and his morning pills in him and now he's back in bed.
Mom is, of course, freaking out. She's now "taking a nap" with him - although laying there and still quietly freaking out...

It is a challenge to choose which parent to focus on when we're in a crisis. Mom is sure she can be helpful (and desperately wants to and I don't blame her) and I need her out of the way in order to deal with dad physically. Then all the attention has to go to mom to calm her down and explanations are so often unhelpful as her cognition is so limited...

What a houseful of frail aging issues I have!