Getting Towed

So I was leaving to go to work this morning and my car wasn’t where I had left it last night. Our parking lot is contiguous with the shopping center across the street so when I came home last night and there were no spots left in our lot I parked in the shopping center lot – something I have done numerous times before without ever thinking twice. It turns out overnight parking isn’t allowed and my car way towed early this morning.

My thoughts usually follow a predictable pattern when stuff like this happens:
1. This is going to be such a chore and I don’t have the patience for it
2. How dare those a**holes do this to me
3. Of course this would happen to me because I am stupid and don’t pay attention and probably deserve it.
4. There’s no use getting angry or frustrated because no one cares and life is unfair so be a man a stop crying
5. I have no right to get angry because there is so much other pain and abuse going on the in the world that it is childish to lose my temper over a car

The last point is the one that I usually get stuck on because as much as I tell myself to be calm I am very angry and - like a normal human being - want to justify those feelings. I try to remind myself of all the horrible stuff that happened while I was growing up and to use that to squash the current frustration. At some point I came to believe that if I concentrate enough on memories of alcoholism and abuse that I will forget about what is going on in front of me. This is my insane defense mechanism that inflicts so much more pain than it relieves.

I hate feeling angry! But if I concentrate on old pain I just feel depressed and worthless which is so much more familiar. This is insane.

I called a cab and then took out one of my daily Al-Anon readers. I probably read 30 days of entries by the time I got to the impound site. I was still angry but at least I felt I had tried to cope in a healthy way. As I stood in the office filling out the papers to get my car back I could hear one of the employees in the other room on an intense phone call. I heard her hang up and angrily describe the exchange to one of her co-workers. It made me feel better because I had maintained more composure even after having my car towed than she did on a phone call.

I realize this type of self-righteousness is contrary to what the program teaches. I also realize that I was feeling better at the expense of another person. But this is at least a start because I didn’t get into my normal routine of self-deprecation and depression which would usually last all day. I did something new and even though it wasn’t perfect I now have something to work with. I was able to maintain a little more of my sanity than usual and I’ll call that a victory.