"You made me get water in my eyes!" 

My daughter came home from science class last week and demonstrated her ability to bend a stream from the faucet by putting a comb charged with static electricity near it. She may have been capable of coercing water into Ben's eyes but I have not mastered it yet. I opened the door and offered a towel.

Nothing personal. I said it to a friend on the phone yesterday after she described the dynamics between her and her daughter. When our children or spouses lash out, or pull back, it may have less to do with us than our egocentric tendencies would have us believe. We are simply the closest target. And it seems too advanced for most of us to pin point the truth.

"I got water in my eyes and I don't like it!"

"I feel gritchy and you are my mom, so there! You take my feelings and deal with them."

My friend compared it to the rain. Few of us fall for the illusion that we can cause or deflect precipitation. Nothing personal. It's just raining. But transferring that impartiality to living, breathing, screaming family members is an advanced skill. It doesn't help that they believe we caused it. The clouds are not so easily mistaken. 

"You people down there, you made me leak!"

The book Observing Spirit goes so far as to suggest that we could chose a different emotion. If someone cuts in front of you in traffic, our knee jerk response is often to get mad. But there are other options. He says that if his wife suggests they have company for dinner, he gets irritated, but his daughter gets excited. 

One time a friend drove to my house and was clearly rattled. He had been in a minor accident. But instead of being angry that someone rear ended him he was relieved. 

"I would much rather be hit than hit him. I cannot afford for my rates to go up." 

The book invited me to come up with three novel ways to react to a situation. If my husband forgetting my birthday precedes me being annoyed, I will try being excited, or playful, or grateful. 

I may as well give it a shot. I am sick of being a grump.