All Worked Up

How come when a mother shows her frustration everyone thinks something is wrong with her? They ignore the issue she is addressing and say things like, "Uh oh. Someone got out of the wrong side of bed today."

My seventeen-year-old son even brought me home a piece of hot apple pie from a nearby restaurant just to get me to settle down after I freaked out the other night. "I just want you to feel better, Mom," he said. "I don't like it when you're stressed out."

But an apple pie doesn't solve the original problem. What I had been ranting about was our family's overuse of nonrenewable resources and complete disregard for the environment. "We have to start taking stewardship seriously," I lectured them. "We can start with turning off lights when we leave a room!" They looked at me as if I had just said that Santa Claus was real after all, hoping I would come to my senses soon.

"Don't get all worked up," they said. "You'll feel better in the morning." It's the American way: Soothe ourselves with shopping or alcohol or busyness or entertainment rather than deal with the real issue.

I just wish that apple pie hadn't tasted so good.

What's the last thing you did to soothe yourself without addressing an underlying issue in your life?