Hooray, I'm 43, or how I ended my 42 year. :-\

[liquidj]

After I grew up & became an adult, birthdays generally for me (minus a few very special ones) are "just another day". Don't get me wrong, I always appreciate the sentiment & yes I realize that I am another year older, but what I mean by that is usually I don't feel any different than the day before. Today is different, and I'm not especially happy with the reason why. I ended my 42nd year in an argument with my son. Not just any argument, but one where I "blew a gasket" (verbally only) in anger. I'm not going to get into the details of the argument, but suffice it to say, it was a slow escallation of annoyances between him & I, and then he said something that struck a very sharp nerve with me, and off the rails I went. The words that I said to him in return, letting him know what he did wrong and how wrong it was for him to say it weren't hurtful in themselves, but with the level of anger that I was at, the "presentation" most certainly was. Thankfully, after a few moments of this, cooler heads prevailed, but not until after my hands were shaking, and Jonathan was in tears. It dialed back further, and it ended with us uncomfortably hugging it out, him still in tears.

So today, how do I feel?

Sad, that I let my (thankfully rare but explosive) anger get the better of me.
Embarrased, with myself because it got the better of me with my son as "the target" .
Old, because these are the types of moments from my childhood that I promised myself that I would never repeat with my own child, and yet here we are.

"Happy" 43rd birthday to me....