Love thy neighbor like thyself.

Yesterday I went for breakfast with my mom. I had a veggie omelet that I really enjoyed. She was distraught about getting old. She felt she was losing her memory and spacing out. I thought she was going to cry. I understood somewhat as I not so long ago fell very hard and landed on my left arm and had to wear a sling. I felt old and fat because all my fat landed on the one arm causing the damage. 100 pounds less and it would have just been an owie.

It seems her neighbors next to her are driving her crazy. That, too, I understood because my neighbors had filed a law suit against me over the dirt road that I owned. Since they traveled over it, they thought they owned it and could stop me from planting trees or parking there. They even showed up with a piece of paper that the former owner of their house said they owned the property. The Judge laughed and was exasperated at their attorney. In the end, everything remained the same and they had to pay back the court and attorney fees, that amounted in the $40,000. The long 18 months ordeal was over. What I had learned about all that is that you sometimes have to go to get an attorney to protect your rights. I feel that it is all that my mother can do now. I told her I didn't want her to lose years over this like I did, fighting with the neighbors.

I don't know if the stress from it all is causing her to feel out of control. Probably, but the bottom line is you really have no control over anything but yourself and sometimes that is hard. I didn't want to tell her but her complaints about her neighbors were as unfounded and blown out of proportion as the complaints my neighbors made about me. Even if she is right about it all, right doesn't equal happy. You can scream unfair, you can complain about it, but it doesn't make your neighbors stop nor help you lose weight. You have to be in control of you and ignore everyone else. Regardless how others are, you can chose to ignore it or react. It is such a hard thing to do. Think of the last time someone cut in front of you in traffic, you want to mow them down with your car, but you can't, so you get angry and vent instead. Doesn't change anything and maybe you feel a little better about yourself because you can call the other person a jerk, but what if you skipped all that and didn't react t all. What if you ignored it like it never happened. It maybe tough at first but I bet it gets easier and then becomes a habit and you stop reacting. Today as I am driving, I am going to try it out and see if I can't make my quality of life better.