I’ve had an anxious time of late. Bank accounts, illnesses. When I’m scared, a part of me comes out that my kids refer to as Meanie-Bo-Beanie. I’m not proud to say, she’s been hanging around more than any of us would like the last couple of weeks.
Meanie-Bo-Beanie has a dark view of the world, a bad attitude, and a blade-sharp sarcastic edge. She’s prone to extreme statements about, say, screen use and the decline of civilization—before you know it, no one will even be capable of an original thought anymore. That kind of thing. She’s prone to feeling under-appreciated and superior at the same time, a real doozy of a package deal, and not at all a delight to be around.
And though I really do see how she came by these behaviors naturally, and I’m fairly good about saying to my family, it’s not you, it’s me, so they don’t take the behaviors personally, in certain emotional states, I have yet to master the art of consistently managing the behaviors. Because though the outer world has provided some friction and upset, some fodder for stormy moods as it will, the momentum and escalation has occurred internally—the storm largely an inner one. Perhaps you can relate?
In her essay, “On Keeping a Notebook” (one of my most favorite essays), Joan
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