Wednesday, June 10, 2009

ANGER FEELS ALIVE

Sometimes I feel like I must be at least two people, because one person could never contain this much anger.

One person burns slow and simmers like a pan on the back burner. It’s distracting and it pulls at my attention from almost every task. My anger is only satisfied when I am exercising, being physical. Pumping iron for some reason puts my anger on hold. Maybe it’s my IPod music? Maybe it’s my hands on the cold steel? Maybe it’s the strain on my muscles. I don’t know whatever it is, it quiets the beast. The beast is also quieted by dancing or sex. Come on almost everyone’s mind is changed by sex.

When I get like this my anger can last all day, all week, a month before it bubbles over. I’ve had times when small things like being out of butter for my toast or missing the step at the curb crossing the street I could kill for about 30 seconds before it dissipates. I feel bizurk, out of control. It’s like a very short rollercoaster, up and down. After about 35 seconds it’s gone, like a memory from my youth.

Sometimes my anger is like a flash fire consuming all the human nature I’ve stored up. Crackling, feasting, charring, eating and growing. I’ve heard people say it feels like their face is burning when their mad. I have never felt that. I feel the burn all over and starts low in my gut. I have been so mad before that my eyes were on fire, but that’s rare. I have been so mad before that I didn’t feel like myself anymore, not human. I felt like an evil alien superhero made of a fire that consumes to live. Everything slows down like a slow motion movie but the sound is loud. Everything blast in my ears, people’s voices, music and light. Yes light has sound when I’m that flavor of mad. I really never understood why that happens, but does loud and painful. Anger feels me up and grows beyond my boundaries, slashing out like a foul caldron with too many ingredients.

The two phases of anger that I feel are mostly separate. It often not something I enjoy because I’m a bit of a control freak and there is very little control in these short lived times. When I notice the simmering anger I’ve usually had it for a while. Like I said something small, then something else and so on until there is this low hum in my ears like an engine that is a little off. It took me years of repaying my days to catch on to what the hum. It’s like the “butterfly effect” but inside my head. I stubbed my toe in the morning on the way to the toilet, some guy bumps me on the train without so much as an excuse me. That’s all it takes to start the ball going down the hill. The ball that might take a day, a week or a month to reach the valley where the screaming, burning villagers live.

The other flash fire type is a little more scary to me because I don’t always see it coming or know what happens in the 30 to 40 seconds it lasts. What if I really hurt someone while I’m stuck in the rage. I can’t say it’s never happened. When I was young I fought often when I was swept up in the flash fire. Someone I didn’t like would say something that they probably thought was OK or just teasing and the next thing I knew I would be looking into the face of a very scared or angry person.

People who knew me when I was younger would say, ‘That guy he’s too sensitive’ or ‘He has a short fuse’. Now I know I had anger management issues. Today I meditate and do things that help me manage the dragon that doesn’t want to sleep in me.

Uh what the, some guy just unplugged my f’n laptop at the café. Who the hell does he think…..OK breathe 10, 9, 8…..

I feel hot, well I feel hot on the inside in my core like a volcano threatening to explode. All I can say is Look out below!!! Yes I believe anger is alive.


Written on 1-31-06

Revised on 06-01-09

1 comment:

  1. From your sister Patty--
    >>I really enjoyed your piece “Anger Feels Alive”. Mostly for the reasons you said. Indeed anger feels alive.

    >>I love this line-my favorite

    “Sometimes I feel like I must be at least two people, because one person could never contain this much anger.

    >>YOU KNOW!!!
    “some guy bumps me on the train without so much as an excuse me. That’s all it takes to start the ball going down the hill”

    >>ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!THOSE ARE TERMS FOR A BEATING
    “Uh what the, some guy just unplugged my f’n laptop at the café. Who the hell does he think…..OK breathe 10, 9, 8…..”

    ReplyDelete