It had been one of those nights with too much going on — too many deadlines, too many errands, too little money. Although I normally take pride in the length of my fuse, it was not long that night.

And she had been right. I hadn’t told her not to throw the ball in the house. I’d said not to bounce it.

Most of the time, that’s one of our games — her analyzing my commands for every possible bit of wiggle room allowed by the words, and me trying to make my orders so specific there’s no room for maneuvers. I’m a laid-back kind of mom and she’s an extremely good kid, one who only occasionally pushes too far.

On this night, though, I had gone from zero to 90 without any warning. When I’d issued my orders against bouncing, it had been said playfully. And then I had snapped, barked and punished. Quietly, she got ready for bed. Fell asleep feeling sad. Was awakened by a nightmare.

“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it,” wrote Emperor Marcus Aurelius ages ago. What she had done was minor. My reaction was major. It had exceeded reasonable bounds.

Much like that of a friend of mine who, for the past several years, has been going through a long and ugly divorce. Her husband was cheating, and the news made her bitter.

More than bitter, though. The anger has consumed and changed her.

She’s gone from someone whose number I was thrilled to see appear on my caller ID to someone whose calls I’ve begun to avoid.

She seems stuck on repeat. It’s not fair that he … He shouldn’t be … I just know that he …

“So what if he …?” I’ve said several times, but it falls on deaf ears. There’s no undoing the past, yet she continues feeding her pain by reading his blog and driving by his new house and pumping their children for information each time they see Dad.

I read somewhere that holding on to anger and resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Yes, she was wronged, but rather than trying to make the best of where she is now, she’s allowing her bitterness to corrode her present and, very likely, her future.

There’s no going back to start, no undoing the past. But there’s also no reason not to start from here and work toward a much happier end.

With that in mind, I got up early and walked through the wet grass in our yard until I spotted the ball. It had landed squarely in the center of a large mound of dog poop.

Lesson learned. Reacting in anger tends to just get you more crap.