Everyone’s upset

I get upset at the in-animates.

I yell at a pocket notebook that resists me pulling it out of my back pocket. “What are you doing?!”

I fume at dirty glass lenses. “Why can’t you stay clean?!”

I swear at my shirt when I take it off and it gets caught on the back of my head. “Goddammit!”

I’m certain they are doing it on purpose. They know what I want and they are doing the opposite. They resist me because they are upset that they can’t do things on their own. They are my dependent on me. Dependence breeds anger.

I know because I felt the same way when I was a kid. I couldn’t tie my shoelaces. I was unable to open jars. I couldn’t reach the counter to get what I wanted. These and many other unables made me dependent on my folks to do these things for me. As a result I existed in constant sullenness and I showed it when my parents needed me to do something, like get ready to go someplace with them. I would moan and drag my feet resulting in them being late to where they wanted to go.

My resistance sent my parents into a fury because now they were now dependent on me.