Breaking the Cycle

I has an argument with my daughter yesterday. Well, argument is too strong, we don't argue any more. We haven't for years. It's more like I do something that upsets her and she flies off the handle. I generally say nothing and wait for her to get over it, even though it sits in the back of my mind and annoys me for days. This time, I was leaving anyway so I kept on going. The pattern is familiar, almost boring.

Something different happened this time. After a quick flash of anger and about a hour of going over it in my mind, how she could have handled it better, why can't she just grow up, I suddenly had a flash of sadness. It was there and gone, just as fast, almost without a ripple. And all the stuff that normally gets stuck out in my head, is, somehow, just set aside.

Hey, I'm all "enlightened," right? Been working on myself for years, I meditate and process, I should be able to handle this stuff by now right? Nope. Usually it messes with my sleep and bugs me for days afterward. But not this time.

The weird thing is that the sadness just sort of snuck in, real sneaky like, about the time began to notice and acknowledge the ways that I had contributed to the blowup. It took some time to find and process the deep sadness and afterward found I was left with a pervasive despair. Despair at how the cycle just repeats, stimulus, response, she says, I say, and the circle goes round. But this time I seem to be on the outside of it and the emotional charge that usually keeps it stuck in my head is gone. Funny. Now I can talk to her without all the baggage which usually makes things weird.

At this point I'm guessing that I've reached another milestone of come kind. Time will tell what it turns out to be.