Where did those come from?

I've been feeling out of sorts over the last few days: I've been alternating between rage and tears with calm times in between. I was driving around today and I was really angry at one point, which doesn't improve my driving (some might say that it has the opposite effect), so I calmed myself down and tried to figure out just why I'm so emotional. I can't be PMSing because I don't have the hormones around to do that.

I realized that part of the reason I was angry right then was because of the driving experience: there are more people on the road than usual, and many of those people seem to be unaccustomed to driving and/or don't know where they're going. I'm the kind of person who knows where I'm going and I want to get there; people who are meandering around in their cars drive me nuts.

But I haven't been driving all the time that I've been emotional lately. Of course I have been in quite a lot of pain lately because of my tooth and sinus.... and thinking back, pain makes me cranky and when I'm cranky I get moody. So I expect that a large part of my moodiness is related to the pain I feel - chronic pain is a terrible thing.

I don't think that's the whole story, though. I know that there's the Christmas stuff going on and I'm still mourning my dad, but I don't think that these are the major components of my present moodiness. Remember I was asking about what I could tell people when they ask what I do? I've realized that the real issue here is more that I need to learn to value what I do right now and not what I used to do. And I think this is what's bothering me most now: I'm searching for meaning in my life. You wouldn't think that this would make me angry and teary, would you? Well, except that searching for meaning tends to leave me feeling a bit down, and that easily transforms itself into anger and sadness.

So.... knowing this, I can hopefully deal with it in some way. I have more tools in my arsenal now with the meditation and journaling so maybe I can do this without avoiding the negative issues altogether.