Learning To Self-Regulate And A Hot Honey Adobo Chex Mix Recipe

For those who like sweet and salty foods paired with their sweet and salty relationships.

My mom called me while I was running errands and left me a frantic voicemail, “I tried to withdraw money from the ATM and it didn’t give me the money or a receipt.” A considerable amount of money was gone into the abyss and there was no way of getting it back in the moment. I was faced with the task of utilizing the tools I learned in therapy: exercising restraint and self-regulating. Or…OR…my immediate knee-jerk reaction: yelling at her for…once again…getting herself into some cinematic hijinx and leaving the problem for me to solve. Unlike you, dear reader, I absolutely yell at my mother. I always feel guilty afterwards, but I’m never ashamed. Instead of solving the issue until she reached an impasse, she had brought her problem for me to solve. Abandoning two mottos she annoyingly reiterated from her youthful high horse, “You get yourself into trouble, you get yourself out.” And “practice what you preach.”

Never any nuance. Never any gray.

Like an overworked parent - wearing my freshly prescribed reading glasses on top of my head, pocketbook and car keys in hand - I tiredly appeared at the bank’s administrative desk the next day inquiring, “What happened?”