The Art of Crankiness (or when to hold your tongue)

I have been increasingly cranky the past four days. And when I say cranky I mean easy to irritate, easy to yell, easy to upset, and then equally as easy to calm down once I've yelled, been upset and been irritated. I suppose a better word word would be moody, but the thing is that the very juvenile nature of my irritability requires a word associated with toddlers.

This morning, a friend of mine (taking a hint from Resevoir Dogs let us call her Mrs. Pink) and I had made a coffee date (like we do almost every single day). Poor Mrs. Pink woke up late, thought she could still get to Starbucks on time but couldn't, called me to let me know she wouldn't be able to make it and unknowingly placed herself in Cranky Deb's line of fire. I attempted to shame Mrs. Pink on the phone (lucky for her, she refused to accept said shame) and when that wasn't enough, attempted to shame her via text message, the most juvenile form of reprimand. Then, while we reconciled ourselves via g-chat, I proceeded to emotionally vomit upon Mrs. Pink my disappointment about she and I going to a different mall then I had wanted to go to on Tuesday, at which point I realized I had gone too far.

When I was growing up, my parents were firm believers in expressing one's emotions at all times, and this, not so surprisingly, has translated itself in my adult life to a complete inability to hold anything back. Anything I think, feel, experience at any given moment must be described to anyone and everyone, be it the time I pooped my pants, a magical experience seeing Symphony Hall completely empty for the first time, or my concern for my Dad and his swollen leg. Most of the time (I hope) this is just entertaining.

But what I'm starting to realize is that there is also a time to just shut up. Not everyone needs to know everything and I am not necessarily talking about my own embarrassing stories. The thing is that Mrs. Pink doesn't need to be subjected to my anger because she is late once out of a thousand coffee dates. There is no reason for her to feel guilty or for me to try to make her feel guilty. And, yes, I feel better after I've talked about it, but at what cost? Maybe it's about time for me to reign it in and to start expressing myself with a little grace and tact, which, though hard to come by when you are a member of my family, would be appreciated by all my loved ones. So, stay prepared for stories about excrement and my beard hair, but know that hopefully, if you are late, I can be capable of loving you enough to know that, sometimes, you just oversleep.