What is the melting point--
There is no universe where I am a perfect person—perfectly calm, perfectly pleasant, perfectly woman. And yesterday I proved that I have a point where I just meltdown.
I like to believe I am an authentic person. If you read some of my essays about my late husband, you might feel that the grief consumed my world. It did.
What I have never talked about was that I have anger—a few different types of anger that have been part of me my entire life.
The first anger is the quick flash fire. It flares up and then is gone in minutes. Usually that anger comes when I am frustrated. Maybe someone didn’t listen to me when I gave them instructions. Maybe I didn’t like what they had to say. I think of this anger as a clearing out of annoyance. Sometimes I can listen to what that other person had to say or instead of getting angrier, I have a moment where I can walk away.
Running from someone is a viable strategy if you have a blazing temper.
The second anger is what I call my berserker rage. I actually see red and I don’t have full control of my mouth or my anger. I will say and do things that will hurt someone and when the rage disappears, I am then shamed and embarrassed by my behavior. This rage is triggered.
The last anger I call the cold rage. If I am in a red rage too long or realize that I have been betrayed, I go completely cold. I have no emotions whatsoever. This is my most dangerous rage because I can see every fault line in a person. I know where to tap to completely destroy someone. When I come out of that rage, I scare myself.
Thankfully as I get older, I don’t have the energy to sustain the last two rages.
So I confess I had a meltdown yesterday.
I learned something about myself. Even though my rational mind usually has control of my acts and emotions, there is a passion bubbling in my depths that explodes when it is not acknowledged.
Because I have such a tight control of my anger, when I lose control, the explosions are spectacular. If I would just lessen the control, and direct that passion somwhere else, maybe I wouldn’t have those pressure cooker moments.
Since I am a creative, I need to direct this passion into creativity. As I feel better, I have more of that antsy energy that needs a place to go. One of those places I have been expending energy is through dance. Please keep me dancing at givesendgo.
Plus I am putting up short stories and novel chapters on Patreon. There I do Coffee Klatch Mondays, if you want to catch up with me.
I guess I’m saying that the anger is actually misdirected passion. See you don’t have to be young to learn something new.