Proverbs 27, Verse 4
"Jealousy is more dangerous and cruel than anger."
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CHIPPED WISDOM:
"I'm not really sure I understand," I said to my therapist, crossing my legs like a girl the way I do, "that I understand the point of getting angry."
He raised his eyebrows at that. He's a good eyebrow raiser. He doesn't raise one, quizzically, like a therapist might, he raises both at the same time, making him look rather like an eight-year-old Macaulay Culkin whenever I say something even remotely surprising or unexpected in session. He intimated that I was angry at him, which I wasn't but, the moment he said that, making the session about the interplay between me and him, I got angry.
"I noticed that, when you got angry at me, your attention wandered away, and you got quiet and sort of shut down."
I stared at the wall-hanging on his, well, where else would it be-- his fucking wall. Hanging there. It had frayed edges, like a little rug, and I didn't like how the fringes at the top sort of just flopped over like a bunch of spaghetti noodles. It looked silly.
"What?"
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I don't know how to be angry, and I don't really think anybody else does either. Sure, you can take anger management classes, or teach them, but I don't think that means very much. Once, a patient told me "you're not allowed to get angry inside a psych hospital" and I went all therapist on him and talked about how anger isn't the problem it's the expression of it and how there are appropriate ways to be angry but, really, he was right. Pace angrily, and we're going to watch you. We'll "give you space", but we're putting a plan in place. Go to your room and slam your door, we're telling a nurse. Yell and scream? Well, guess what. We have ways of dealing with that, too.
Early on in my confused adolescence, (I know, whose isn't?) I tried using my precocious nature and facility with the English language to express my anger through letters, when I felt slighted or like there had been some sort of injustice. At fourteen, that got me dis-invited back from a summer theatre program. At twenty, it almost got me thrown out of college.
Every time I get angry at my wife, it feels disgusting. Sometimes we're "fighting fair", sometimes we're not. I don't think that really matters a damn. It's still disgusting and hurtful and shameful. When I scream at my father, it feels great. It's cathartic. I'm releasing endorphins and testosterone and triptophan or whatever and that's great but it always feels horrible afterward. Like, I expect, drinking feels, you know, after. Or sex, you know, with the wrong person. Or the wrong hole.
Whoops. Went too far. That happens sometimes here. But you knew that.
Of course, holding it in doesn't feel so hot either. I know, because I've done it my entire life. And letting it out in a very controlled, precise, measured way feels, well, very controlled, precise, and measured.
And that's not so good. What's the point?
"The point," my therapist said, "is that people get angry, and that's okay."
Wow. Can I have that on a bumper-sticker?
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I got angry after reading this today. I get it. The author got 6.7 thousand Likes on Facebook and 217 people tweeted it and 469 people shared it.... some other fucking way. And he's an internet phenom and I'm an internet schmuck-nom, and that's wonderful and all. And I remember when I was dumb enough to write, um, a whole book to my then-unborn children. And it was full of the unfettered depths of my psyche and it exposed them to all of the awful stalagmites that grow unchecked in my head, the depravity and the heat. And I said provocative things to them, these then-unborn children of mine and isn't it droll to say something like "Dear Daughter: I Hope You Have Some Fucking Awesome Sex" but, God, do I see through you, you meme-machine. You hipster. You Friend of the Like. You wouldn't know the first thing about being a father, even though I know you are one. SO. I don't care. I don't care if you've fathered a veritable gaggle of girls. Your self-righteous, better-than-thou attitude is sycophantic and cloying and playing to a breathless cadre of twenty-something girls on Facebook you want to fuck who think you're SUCH AN AMAZING DAD and gee if only YOU'D sired my children everything would be going fine.
And everything is going fine.
So, I got angry, and I'm not sure there was a point. Maybe I'm jealous. Maybe that's worse than anger. Or maybe I'm right. Either way, I'm definitely hungry. I wish I had a peach to eat, but there's just goddamn Granny Smith apples.
Tomorrow will be better.
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