Anger and Reaction

A dreadful spiral

Part 1: Reading Harry 

I am watching The Chamber of Secrets as I write this.  Good flicks, those HPs, for the most part, I think.  I did enjoy the books more. I read them all once.  The first book maybe a few times. That’s my favorite. 

The books in this photo were Katie’s.  She read Harry Potter in bed to help her fall asleep every night for at least 15 years. You can see how worn they are. This is her second set. Sometimes she would just take part of a book with her to bed. Usually, she wouldn’t make it more than a page before falling asleep. She would be in bed, propped to the side holding the book in one hand in a reading position for hours… but actually totally asleep.

Harry Potter was predictable. She knew every page. Every word. She could start anywhere in any book and know what was going on. She knew the personality of every character. She could relate to them. She understood the wonder of how clever Rowling was in her writing. The clever little details are really the best.

There’s a lot of anger and reaction in stories. Voldemort, mudbloods, the houses themselves are all set up for division and conflict. Good vs Evil. Seldom gray. 

Part 2:  Anger Rises

I got genuinely angry for the first time in quite a while today. I didn’t like it. 

So…  I am actively working at my desk. Entering data into a spreadsheet. I am clearly concentrating. A fellow teacher comes in, “I need your body” “ha ha oh that sounds horrible” and she grabs my shoulder in what I think was meant to be affection.  I’m still trying to work.  I’m not amused.

I say, clearly “Just a minute, let me finish this…” and she starts talking.  “You need to see this” See this? She expresses urgency. She asks questions in a way that I feel like I’m being led down a path I don’t want to go down. “Yes, No, I agree, Yes, it’s cramped, we knew that” blah blah blah.

I’m highly irritated now because she didn’t at all listen to my simple “just a minute”.  Urgency. She is urgent.  If it’s not worthy of an ambulance I’m not into urgent.  Urgent is hasty. Urgent is bad decision making.

and it goes on. and the boss is involved. and then I’m involved again and then she corners me again and starts to get nasty and accuses me of not putting the students first. 

I am prideful. I know. She just insulted my entire being… 

Don’t accuse me of not putting the students first. Don’t pull that guilt crap on me. Don’t try to manipulate me to your point of view. She kept going. Adding and adding and I asked her to stop and she did not.

She was trying to use me to gain power and opinion to then go to the boss and get something changed. It was manipulation. She was telling me what my opinion should be. She was telling me I was not putting the students first. She was belittling all the work that had been done the last few months to make everything better…  Yes. I was angry.

and she walks away and waves her hand at me, “You’re not listening!”

Oh… I was listening. 

I am still hearing it now, hours later and I don’t want to give her that space in my head. It is mine. 

Now I’m faced with the dilemma of a coworker that I really don’t want to see. And I know from past experiences that it is very unlikely that she will be the one to come forward and apologize. We will see each other and it will be uncomfortable. 

Eventually, it will probably be me that creates the peace treaty so we can get along again. 

Sigh. 

Make peace. Remember to Love. The time here on earth is short. Enjoy it. Be kind. Communicate clearly. Be honest. 

BREATHE - control your pride. Think about where they are coming from. BREATHE

Part 3: The flashback

Unfortunately, this anger experience reminded me of some of the more difficult times with Katie. She was probably the last person I really got mad at. 

It didn’t matter that I understood where it was coming from. That her meanness was rooted in an anger at the world. Anger at her mother for leaving her on a street in Korea. Anger at the orphanage for taking her in and then selling her. Anger at her adopted parents for throwing her out. Anger at those that professed love and then left her. Anger at those who didn’t believe her. Anger at those that didn’t understand that she was right (and Katie was always right). Anger at those she loved that had the gall to die before her. A lot of anger that would bubble and surface despite her love and energy and power….

In our first years together I seldom saw this anger and it was never directed at me. I’ve mentioned she burned bridges. Yes, she did. Very effectively in most cases.

One thing I did know about Katie was that if she went on a path, she took it to the end. It needed to be completed. If I were to start a sentence, she would have to…   There couldn’t be ______ bits. Everything had to place be in it’s. She would see it through.  This was both in amazing, beautiful things like her blog. Her research into every little thing. Her caring words and deeds for friends… and for arguments and depression and anger. Even if she knew what was happening, she would see it through to completion. To the final period in the last sentence.

I tried to help her out of these spirals that were negative, but I never found a way. The only thing I could really do was be there.

During Covid she basically stopped going out. She had fewer friends and acquaintances, but her inner demons were still there looking for a way out.  And once they set foot…  Once she saw something racist on TV. Once she read about some horrible sexist behavior… once she heard about a family doing something horrible to their children… it would fester and grow and eventually come out…

and there I was. Many times. More and more as she came closer to her end. 

It got so that I would hear something that I knew was a trigger and look to see if she was paying attention. If she was, I knew it would come. It was just a matter of time.

I have been called a liar, accused of desertion, lack of dedication, told I don’t love her, infidelity, racism, all sorts of things in receipt of the spirals. She even accused me of trying to poison her. (I cooked for her nearly every night. At some point broccoli became something her stomach couldn’t handle. We learned this by eating broccoli. Something changed in her and it now produced a lot of pain in her stomach. Her reaction was not to quickly deduce that broccoli was now bad… but to accuse me of trying to kill her.  Quite loudly, fiercely. No fun, let me tell you. The woman I would do anything for, accusing me of trying to kill her. Cuts deep). 

And even though I knew … the patterns… the steps.  There were times that I could not be calm and serene and just take it and I would also grow mad and angry. It is hard to be accused of things you would never even dream of… Hard to be accused with words that scathe and burn without reacting. 

If I felt it coming.. a welling of anger.. I would try to get out for a walk. Get away. Give her time to settle and perhaps go to sleep.  Chances are, if I was gone an hour she would forget the whole thing.

Sometimes I was too slow and my anger would boil out in words. Mean things I would regret. Mean things that might even be rooted in truth but would just add to the spiral. I had to get out.

Sometimes, I hear, the mind does funny things when death is on the door. Sometimes personalities and behaviors appear that weren’t there before or… they just get emphasized. Sometimes they become different people… 

Knowing this and experiencing it are not the same. But I did know her past and where it came from. I did know the triggers. And so I endured. There was no one else. Love goes on.

The tides do change sometimes.

And in her final month. The entire final month. She was a consistent woman of love. Speaking kind words to me. Thanking me. Telling me every day how much she loved me. Holding and squeezing my hand. Sometimes apologizing. It was a soft month.

I am glad to have that last month. It brought me back to earth. It allowed me to hold her in total love as she passed. There was no anger or reacting lingering. 

But regardless … Today sent me into flashbacks to those spirals.  Those are not the moments I want to remember. Nor do I want to experience them again. 

Speak with kindness. Listen. Love. I do not want to be the angry person. the mad person. or the person that reacts. 

We are here to experience life. Sometimes it’s not so pleasant but there are things in everything to listen to… pay attention to and learn from. Perhaps there will be suffering along the way but in the end, happiness and love are a journey. Not a destination. The sunrise is greatest when it pops out of a misty fog and then disappears again. If there is no fog… the glory is diminished. Someday… someday I will see a green flash at sunset. I will keep watching.

When I was in middle school my brother convinced my mother and I to climb Mt. Adams in Washington. I was last up. Everyone else was on the peak and there were no clouds. I stood on the top in a dense fog that did not disperse. I still climbed the mountain… It was about the climb and the climb was difficult. Such is… 

— oh, the movie is still on.  Moaning Myrtle is fabulous.