Karma not quite undone

Today I have a holiday day off for the day after Christmas and first thing before I even got out of bed yet was a phone call from Lisa. She thought it would be a good idea to go to Legoland tomorrow instead of Wednesday because of the rain situation. And therefore we need to leave tonight, and take care of the dog situation. I did not want to bother my sister with that request and to be candid, I was already iffy with leaving the dog with her on Wednesday to begin with. I was simply not ready to re-introduce Lisa into the equation. I can say all day long about how I am concerned that she will say something that upsets my family but really it's simply that she will say something that will upend some lie I have brought up in the past. And that, as it would turn out later on, would upset the cart anyway reintroducing a whole new energy I need to heal. She said to come ready to leave between 2 and 3 PM and so that all of a sudden compresses my day. It IS a Monday so my first thought was that would I even be able to do my routine of 15000 steps today? And if not, how would I make it up for the rest of the week? I don't even know what's happening the rest of the week anyway because she isn't working. And so I tried to do what I usually do on a Monday but compressed. I walked to McDonald's to get breakfast. I walked to Ralphs to get the grocery shopping done that I didn't do this weekend. And I kept on walking. By the time I got to lunch I had gotten up to 8000 steps and almost 90 active minutes. It was like a regular Monday. And I had leftovers for lunch from last night, and threw in some tomato bisque soup to round it out. By the time I took a shower to actually get ready to leave it was 1:30 PM and I was already at 10,000 steps and over 100 active minutes. If I didn't do anything else today I would have been happy already. I packed up quickly and got to Lisa's house at 2:30 PM. Was she ready to go? Absolutely not. <Sigh> Johnnie was ready to go though, Lisa was playing piano. I did not understand, knew that there was no miscommunication, but did not question it anyway. Hey if we're going to drive together for 2 hours, let alone spend the entire day tomorrow at an amusement park, I knew I had to prepare myself emotionally and mentally. I thought about Disneyland as the model but also made myself aware that THAT trip almost didn't happen at first because of some drama. I thought to myself that drama was a given, I just didn't know where it would come from. As it turned out, I was still not prepared adequately.

So the picture I posted was Johnnie and I in the car ready to leave for San Diego, and of course, waiting for Lisa. Still. It was nearly 4 PM by the time we actually left and we still had to get to Sierra Madre first to leave Claire with Lisa's mom. And it was 5 PM by the time we got there. Still, there was surprisingly not much traffic and we were at San Clemente a little past 6 PM. That's where we decided to stop and get dinner. Panda Express for Johnnie and I, and Lisa brought her own veggie soup and got some chips and guac from Chipotle. Yes it was an odd pairing but who cares. And we had a pretty good dinner. Everything seemed to be going along swimmingly until we got near the exit <Palomar Airport Rd>. That's when Lisa asked about dinner tomorrow, and when I said there wasn't any dinner, she got triggered.  She questioned if my sister was actually home or not as I said. And when I dismissed it with a tone that she didn't like, she said she felt attacked. She said I was being a jerk <again>. And even Johnnie from his perch in the back said that it was my tone that made Lisa react. He was absolutely react. But once triggered, Lisa kept going down the rabbit hole. She bugged about lying about my conversation with my sister. Which then brought up the whole thing with lying about my age. And how I lie all the time. And that I couldn't be trusted. NOW it was personal. NOW I felt attacked. And I got triggered. And I got angry. And then it was my turn to get out of control and bring up past shit. Namely a year ago when she screamed at me on Christmas Eve and I drove down to San Diego instead. Now we were both out of control. We were both angry. And I wanted to drive back. My deal was to always walk away. And I couldn't. And I got even angrier that I couldn't. And I screamed at Lisa this time. I screamed that I would never do this again with her and that she has already fucked up this trip. And Johnnie started crying. And THAT snapped me out of my state. I drove to the hotel right from re-entering the freeway to head back home. And I got out of the car and apologized profusely to him. I was SO SORRY he had to witness that. It was not his fault. I was still angry at Lisa however. Not really for calling me out, but for insisting on pushing at buttons to create an even larger drama, just like her family loves to do. We could have and should have handled this conversation just she and I without Johnnie present. Now we have to do damage control. AND I WAS DISAPPOINTED IN MYSELF that with all the emotional preparation, I was still not able to control MY OWN STATE. Yes Lisa pushed my buttons. It is what she does. I was still triggered easily and quickly.  I need to rehearse simply saying in a calm voice "Can we discuss it one-to-one and alone please". I have to practice that. Because now I have to recover myself before I can even deal with Lisa and I don't know how long that would take. My immediate thought was that all the work I did this past Saturday is now down the drain and I have to start all over undoing the karma. ANd first things first was to deal with the here and now. Lisa was outside in her car, and came in to announce she had lost her credit card while walking around. And now she can't go get her own hotel room <didn't know she was considering that> and couldn't even pay for herself for Legoland tomorrow. She basically already assumed she was no longer invited. NOW it is up to me to fix this. I sent Johnnie to talk her into reading a book for him before he went to bed. And when he didn't return immediately I went down to talk to her. I was still angry. I hadn't recovered yet. but I needed to at least ask her to stay. She was going to sleep in her car otherwise. I didn't care if she decided to sleep in her car really. I was more concerned of how I would like. That I would be the asshole. I didn't want to be the asshole. And so... although I didn't care what the fuck she did right then and there, I also knew it was the right thing to simply invite her back up to the room and sleep there at least. We will deal with tomorrow TOMORROW. Right this second I did what I could and said what I could so she would come upstairs and that we could all get some sleep. I was able to get her to do that. And then I prepared for sleep and did the only thing I could. I mentally and emotionally took the situation we were in and handed it to the Universe and asked for the best way to get it resolved for the highest good of all. And then I went to sleep.