Get Away From Me

I try to keep an eye on how outside issues - things, people, events, politics, anything outside of my personal hula hoop - affect my insides.  Most of the time the connection is clear to me, whether it makes me happy or pisses me off or anywhere in between, thanks to a lot of meetings and a lot of talking and a lot of meditation but from time to time I'm surprised to find that an event or a series of events really affect my outlook on matters that have nothing to do with the offending event.  There's a real snowball effect.  I find that upset on something can bleed over into upset about unrelated matters, often matters that wouldn't upset me even on a bad day.  After my encounter with hot tub guy - some random dude I've never seen before and will never see again and why anything this random dude thinks or says would mean anything at all to me is a mystery - there have been a number of smallish encounters that frosted my ass with a much thicker layer of frosting than would normally be deposited.  Makes me think: "What's really going on here?"  There's a subtext that I'm missing.

To wit: my lovely, important neighbor who tsk-tsked me about the Great Donut Caper has some orange trees that we feast on and on and on. We've eaten a lot of delicious, free oranges over the years, hundreds of free oranges and if you've never picked an orange, peeled it, and eaten it on the spot you don't know what you're missing.  But now she has been inviting friends from the community over to harvest oranges, too - I think she may get avocados or some such in return - and I find this mildly annoying.  Those are MY free oranges even though I can't possibly eat all of the fruit this tree produces and my neighbor can do whatever she wants with her fruit.  She can tell me to stay out of her trees.  She can let the fruit rot on the tree.  They're her trees!  They're not my trees!

Not to belabor a point but I will anyway.  I have mentioned that telling people I love them is a big part of my personal persona.  Women are generally much more receptive than men to this so I'm less inclined to behave this way with men.  Which is fine.  Most guys my age - most guys of any age - didn't grow up in families where men talked this way.  I can tell quickly whether or not this is going to fly and I adjust my comments accordingly.  Here's the point, finally: one of my somewhat younger friends has started ending our walks with an obviously sarcastic rendition of "I love you," dripping with disdain, voice attenuated to add to the comic effect.  You know . . . once is enough, man.  I get it.  It was slightly funny at first but now it's annoying.  Again, this is on me, something I started, something I'm happy to quit doing, but, c'mon, really?  I got the point the first time.  Now normally I'd just stop saying it and off we'd go but he is not giving it a rest.  Who gives a shit, right?  Not me 99% of the time but it's kind of sticking in my craw at the moment.

I, at the moment, live in an angry country.  A lot of people are angry.  Not just upset, angry.  I can see how this bleeds into the rest of my existence.  I can see how when I was living a negative life, constantly expressing negative thoughts and words, that people wanted to get away from me.