Mood: Indigo (Ellington; [If you get it, you are my favorite!])
It’s A Thing, And Always A Part of Me
I am human. I suspect this will always be the case, at least I sure hope so; as shitty as we can be to one another, I quite enjoy being human. One of the main truths, I think, about being human is having emotions. Well, not only having emotions, but being able to regulate, to control them, and that is most important.
When my brother Doug passed away from his short battle with cancer, I certainly went through the stages of loss and grief, of course; how could I not? Something that seemed to stick with as long as the sadness was sudden and irrational anger. Drop of the hat kind of anger, but only directed at me. If I dropped something, if I messed something up, if I accidentally hurt myself in a stupid way and when my damn knee tweaked worse than it was, especially if I bit my tongue or inside of my mouth. Explosive, vehement. Sometimes violent in the fact I would throw something or smack a wall.
Only ever when I was alone, though. I somehow would not act out or at least let it show when others were around.
It took a while to diminish, but as has become my way to look inward, and as it is still with me, I began to wonder where it came from. Yeah, I am certain it seems obvious. As I just spent time writing, it manifested as a result of my brother’s passing. And yet, I began to realize it’s been with me a very long time.
That Poor, Angry Little Brother
I had to have been 7 or 8 that first time I remember letting The Beast out. As the youngest of three boys, I was the bottom of the pecking order when Mom and Dad were at work and we were on our own at home. We were creative little kids and when not playing outside we would invariably be in the basement making castles and headquarters out of wine boxes and such for paper figures we had crafted, or building and painting Aurora models and the like. It was one such Summer day we were doing so in the basement, a half underground affair with windows at ground level. That damnable pecking order forced me to have to take our Weimaraner dogs to do their ‘business’ and it wasn’t fair as I had already done it at least once before (part of the task was cleaning up after the dogs, and I never liked doing it) and I was pissed off at the injustice of it. Outside, there was a gallon paint can, as I recall, and I picked it up and, screaming with the kind of irrational anger that controlled me, I whipped that fucker at the window that looked on our little work area. It didn’t go through, but it broke the window. I still to this day can see the scared and surprised expressions on their faces and can laugh at the memory now, but I also clearly recall how the anger was immediately replaced with the sinking feeling and fright of just how much trouble I was in.
There were other incidents in the next few decades, and it morphed for a time into suffering no fools and just verbally lighting into and tearing down a person who showed their utter ignorance on something I was well versed in, if they had taken on a holier-than-thou attitude. I took great pleasure from doing so.
There was also a time after I lost my Uncle Fred to pancreatic cancer where I shut off from almost everyone for a full year, coming out of it with heightened emotions followed by something like 18 months of various friends and family passing away what seems like every two weeks on average. Those few years are kinds fuzzy; what I remember about the anger was how utterly draining the bouts were and how my head hurt afterwards. It was almost like an addiction, where I hated the withdrawal but couldn’t help myself when the anger came for a visit. This was the time, I think, when I learned to ‘take it out on myself’ or when I was alone, which was most of the time during those years. Thank God I was never in a relationship during them!
Learning To Cope, To Grow, To Be At Peace
I tend to be really great at picking the wrong woman to love. As with the anger I deal with, I am a Passionate person, and when I love, I love. It maybe lowers my perception of what I should see as warning signs, but every woman I have been in deep, serious love with has betrayed or cheated on me. The last one, perhaps 15 yeas ago was the worst; first woman I moved in with. We got an apartment together and had a full week before she had a summer job in the Interior of Alaska, working for at a State Park. It was a good week and we figured a good beginning in that we would have a little space as it was a relatively quick decision to take an apartment together. The clincher for me was when she helped my mother after she had a knee surgery and was the only one available other than one of us taking time off work, which we were willing to do, but she stepped in.
At any rate, as happens in the Interior, communications became sporadic after the first week, but we knew this would happen. So, finding out she had moved to Texas with her new boyfriend, the same friend that helped us move in to the apartment, a lease she and I signed together, after a silence of two months was a ripping out of my heart and stomping on it. It was worse, of course, after I realized that the move was planned while we were moving our stuff in. She never had a lot of stuff as long as I knew her, had moved around a bit, so the minimal stuff she had was not a sign until later.
This sob story it part of what actually seemed to dilute my irrational anger, bizarrely enough. It may have been a side effect of losing all trust in, yes, women I would find interest in and after one possibility five years down the road after a friend became one with benefits. I realized the irrationality of the anger became an irrationality of mistrusting someone who never earned it, that I now had a problem with allowing a woman in. After a few weeks of distance with some communication with her, I opened up to her about the issue and it might take a long while before I could trust, we both decided it was best to not pursue a further relationship other than what we had. Even after some time of talking about the issue over a year or so, I couldn’t trust enough, even with such intimate connection. How bad is that?
The really sucky thing is that it is totally me, not her or anyone else’s problem, only my issue.
Moving Moments
Now, with a more ‘equitable’ mind, I just moved on with what I saw as my best way to continue. Alone. But never lonely. My other creative passions took the forefront over the next years; Renaissance fair, acting, writing, running a role paying game, having regular Friday night BBQ gatherings and holiday meals with friends. This was all wonderful and I was, have been and am perfectly fine with being a single guy.
This brings us to my move from Alaska to North Carolina, the loss of my brother and me sitting here writing this today. This is where, in reflection, I began to find the tools to quell the Beast of Anger. The key for me (I understand this can and will be different for others) has been to understand the Blessings I have. To understand truly Howe good life has been and continues to be.
I have covered many of these blessings in past blogs, but here are a few:
Before I moved from Alaska I had a job waiting foe me in North Carolina and in my field.
I had a perfect last visit with my brother Doug in Boise.
I work with some of the best people on Earth, the kind that will drop everything to help me or my parents, as I will do in return.
After 6 months or so of house hunting in the area, my parents and I found a perfect new build not a mile from where I work that could be easily made into two separate living spaces. For no extra cost!
I have been on hand through, as promised to them when they moved out of Alaska, times when my parents needed help and support.
I’ve moved close enough to visit two of my very best friends.
As I stated, these are just a very few of the Blessings I keep in mind. The anger surely still gets the best of me for a little time, but when the headache comes and I haven’t broken anything or hurt my cats or even thought of doing so, I know how Blessed of a man, an all too human and emotional man, I am.
What has been being done to our country through politics the passed several years from both Parties is another issue, but does factor in to the feeling of anger, however, I know who or what I can not affect, other than a close circle.
I leave this entry with a simple fave:
I hope this finds you well, and as always, I bid you peace.
