Saturday, February 23, 2008

toxicology

If I had to point out my toxic best friend...you know, the one that is there with you all the time that you have some sort of perverse love for but all in all is toxic to you. Poison. Makes you inevitably a poorer version of yourself...I'd have to point out my anger.

Anger and I have been best friends since childhood. The only one I have. My anger knows no grey areas - only the black and the white. Black being the dormant anger. It sleeps beneath the surface...and because I never shed any light on it - things that should make me angry, don't. There is no self defense, no standing up for what I believe in, no "I will not take that from you". It's simply sleeping. Dormant. An ironic word that rolls of the tongue much like "doormat".

And there is the white. That's the kind of anger that is blinding. I can't quite pinpoint what brought that anger to me in the first place...but I can remember it as a child. My fits were never quite what normal childhood fits were. Things were broken when I threw a fit. Doors, closets, curtains...chairs.

So I have worked hard to...repress. To turn myself into a forgiving person. A less judgemental person. A person who puts such things in another's hands and thereby, takes a bit of the pressure off. But what is repressed...must return every so often.

So recently...when a certain situation put me in the position, the proverbial fork in the road - where I was forced to decide to either shut the hell up and forgive or get angry and demand forgiveness...I hesitated. I wish my brain had that middle fork... You know, the one that says "do both. Get angry, declare your boundaries and then forgive..." But I don't have that fork. So I didn't want to get angry. Let the vices in and you will surely indulge.

But I gave in. And that is what I'm doing now. Indulging in anger. Snapping at every bit, on a constant defense.

My anger used to fuel my writing. Being mad at the injustices of the world was my motivation, my fuel and my fire. But now it's something altogether. It's not quite what it used to be. Though nothing ever really is. Like an animal in a cage I no longer snarl at the cage. I snarl at the people in it.

I'm sure none of this makes quite that much sense to the rest of the world. Little bits and pieces of a brain is all this really is. A couple of ramblings for the time being.

The white anger really is blinding. For the past couple of weeks I haven't been able to focus. To put any sense to anything. I'm simply angry. My best friend is back and I want to do is sit on the couch with it and fade out of focus.

Friends like that aren't good for anybody.

So I know I have to kick that old friend out again. Put a limit to its visits.

Find that middle road.

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