I’ve spent a lot of time lately contemplating the rut I find myself in. Stress and anxiety lie just under the surface, threatening by the moment to erupt through my skin and envelope my body and possibly those of everybody around me. I find myself staring at my computer screen, looking for something. Waiting for something. Well, I think I’ve finally had an epiphany, and I’m not sure I’m ready for the painful truth.
The daily routine has become a struggle. My control over my inner beast is weakening. In the past year, the children have seen more of the demon within me than anyone else has seen in my entire lifetime. I look in the mirror and question the reflection. Who are you? You, who are not me. I don’t know you and I don’t like you.
A late-night messenger chat with a fellow blogger triggered a rare conversation with my partner.
“What is this blogging thing all about, anyhow?”
There it was. The big question.
I’m a sensitive person. Over-sensitive, probably. As in, super-insecure-paranoid-sensitive. So that question to me is double-edged. It could be an innocent I’m genuinely interested in what you are doing question. But it could have been a what exactly are you wasting your time on every day sitting on your computer doing nothing question. Of course, my mind leaped at the latter.
The ensuing discussion was actually pretty good, considering my aggressive-defensive attitude. I attempted to define my difficulties with my writing. It was a good moment of self-reflection. I explained the gap between the blog I wanted (light-hearted, witty humor about our crazy family life) and the blog I was producing.
“I want to write like my mentor/blog-friend Lorna at Gin&Lemonade. She has this great talent for seeing humor in the everyday challenges of life. Every time I write though, it ends up…”
“…vindictive…”
That stopped me. It wasn’t what I was thinking at all. I didn’t think it was accurate either. It did get me thinking though. I’ve always been very careful to keep my writing as non-confrontational as possible, even when my message contained criticism. It is what I promised my readers, after all. Real life, real chaos. No sugar coating.
But vindictive?
Not everyone is a word geek like me
My partner is not a words-person. She doesn’t feel strongly enough about words to worry about getting them just right. Often she doesn’t, but I’m pretty good at guessing the word she actually meant to use. Me? I’m a teacher. An English language teacher. Words are my life. I have to remember though that not everyone is a word-geek like me.
I know that vindictive probably wasn’t the word she was thinking of. Either that or she doesn’t actually know the full meaning of the word. I know she doesn’t think I’m mean-hearted at all. Regardless, she was looking for some sort of negative word to describe the tone of my musings.
And that made me think.
That made me look in the mirror. I looked in the mirror at that not-me person that I don’t like, and I realized that it isn’t not-me anymore. It is me. Like it or not.
Vindictive was too strong a word for the thoughts I allow to seep into the world. It wasn’t so far off the mark when describing the barrier keeping my words from flowing though.
Suddenly I understood my dark shadow
The painful truth stared at me, and I couldn’t sugar coat it any more.
I’m angry.
Every day. Every moment. All the time. I’m angry.
My anger sits just below my skin, and I strain to rein it in when I face the keyboard. So many people could be hurt if I simply let words flow as they stream through my head. If my family and my friends knew what dark thoughts truly swirled in my head, in my heart, the aftermath could be devastating.
I wait for moments of calm between storms of angry thoughts. I can write then, in those brief parcels of peace. It is safe to write then. Waiting for those breaks is like hopping across slowly melting stepping stones in a molten sea of turmoil. It is exhausting.
Facing the painful truth can be a relief
Emotional suppression is like the pressure building along a fault line between the Earth’s tectonic plates. If you let emotions fly regularly, pressure buildup remains at a manageable minimum. Holding it in and fighting to control it may seem to maintain an outward peace, but it leads to violent outbursts. In the physical world we call them earthquakes. Emotional earthquakes may be much more devastating.
The first step toward recovery is awareness of the problem.
Hi, my name is Kim, and I’m angry.
((deep breath))
There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?
I revealed my painful truth to a group of wonderfully supportive aspiring blogger peers. Putting the words on paper, or on the screen I suppose, was harder than I thought. It also felt remarkably freeing.
How can I write my witty humorous blog with this seething anger beneath my skin all the time?
I can’t. And now I know that that’s ok. The encouragement I received was unanimous in its message.
Write angry. Write happy. Just write. “…if you’re writing while you’re feeling what you’re feeling then that will be your best work.”
So here I am. This is me now.
Look out world, things are about to get messy. No more sugar coating. I hope you will come along as I ride the roller-coaster of emotional discovery. I’ve picked the marshmallow lucky charms out of the cereal bowl for long enough. Time to just grab a spoon and dig in.