Day 5 Free writing

[Irene]

Greetings! While doing today's work, free writing in my journal (I use the Penzu online journal), on one topic, I remembered a different time: I'd been called for jury duty, but not selected for the jury.

Later that day, my dad told me that I was not chosen because I'd answered something incorrectly, as if it were a test I'd failed. (The lawyer had asked us what kind of magazines we read, and apparently my needlecraft reading was not relevant to the case. I had no problem with that, and the court house cafe had great cheese-crisps, so it had been a nice day until I got home.)

Was this incident representative of the kind of logic I grew up with? If so, how could I ever have satisfied him? I know that I've also earned his admiration over the years, in spite of having chosen a path he could never have imagined. But he was a perfectionist, and handed that down nicely to his daughters, even if he didn't always make sense.

Now I live with others who with great frequency have illogical expectations, and my anger flares reflexively. And, then, of course, they are clueless about my reactions, and can only conclude that I am a nut. So, I close my mouth and get sick.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

Your father unjustly criticized you about the jury duty. I doubt the needlecraft magazine was why you weren't chosen to serve on the jury.
I'm a former Chicatgo Tribune crime and courts reporter and know that being chosen for jury duty is an in-exact science.

So you inherited your father's perfectionism. Try to modify it so it doesn't cause you pain. Be glad you chose the direction you did.

I had a roommate for seven years and we got along great, partly because I agreed with his philosophy that we should always respect
each other's right to be irrational. Accepting that, we never had an argument.

 

[Irene]

"his philosophy that we should always respect
each other's right to be irrational."

LOL! Thanks, Walt!