Anger

I just got email from my (soon to be ex)mother-in-law about anger, saying I had every right to be furious about things in my life and I need to find a way to deal with it. Ok, yeah, so I'm angry. I'm angry that my mom died. I'm angry about all the shit that happened then with the insurance company and the doctors and my family. I'm angry that the anti-seizure medication they gave her was an appetite supressant when she was eating three bites of food per day and I called the doctors and they told me to give her ice cream "there's a lot of good calories in ice cream." and i'm angry at the indignity of it all, that they didn't see her as a person and that all the doctors were on vacation when we needed to be meeting with them and rather than find people to fill in for them, they just made us wait even though the treatment couldn't wait. And I'm angry that I was only 26 when she died and that I didn't really know her and she had just barely begun to accept me and I had barely begun to accept her. And I'm angry that she didn't accept me for so long and tried so hard to change me by being mean to me about being queer. And I'm angry at her for getting sick and I'm angry at myself and everyone around her for not noticing until it was too late and I'm angry that she died. And I'm angry that I couldn't solve these problems. I couldn't make things go right with my mom or with Christi.

And my anger changes absolutely nothing. My mom is still dead. Doctors are still assholes. All the stuff we never said to each other will always be unsaid. Christi is still gone. And all of this anger is just a protective shell over a whole lot of hurt. Life isn't fair and people I love leave me.

One website says it's very important that we express our anger and adress the cause of it, but do so with I statements. I can picture myself calling up my mom's now-defunct insurance company (they went bankrupt while she was in hospice care) and saying, "I felt very unhappy when you refused to cover the costs of speech therapy for my mom, so she never recovered any of her speech even during the brief time that it seemed like she was improving. And I'm extremely upset that we had to threaten to sue you before you would cover raditaion therapy because I felt like you didn't care about my mom."

another website says not to express it, but to find the root emotion under the anger and deal with that instead, because anger is always the second emotion. Really, I just felt very frightened that she was dying, so I just need to go learn how to deal with fear and go launch into another web search.

another website says to look out for getting easily frustrated and angry in traffic or at plane delays and other bits of impatience that are signs of unresolved anger. But that stupid shit is so trivial. who cares that your plane is a few hours late when everyone who cares about you will eventually die or leave, thus stranding you entirely alone to face your own mortality? yeah, i spent six hours trying not to cry in the dallas airport. and in a hundred years, i'll be dead. so why be mad? i wasn't crying because my plane was late. i didn't even fucking care until i tried to find food in the airport.

Anger seems more proactive than other negative emotions. If you put it into a binary opposition with another emotion, like sad, anger would be the more masculine one. By our patriarchial standards (which I unfortunately subscribe to), anger would win. so what? so what do i do? do i try to talk it out by explaining to my friends and posting in my blog that i'm angry? is my anger just sublimated sadness? should i take time to let myself feel anger? do i turn it in another direction by writing a loud orchestra movement with a lot of trumpet blares and tritones and minor seconds? do i try to distract myself and put it behind me?

the only thing I think I know is that I should speak and act in a loving manner to people I love. I should keep love in mind. Because one day everyone I love will leave me whether on purpose or not and they need to know in their hearts and their minds that I love them.

goddamn it