You’d think that the relative good news I got this afternoon regarding my vision would have given me an entire evening of good. You’d be wrong. Lately it seems that the boiling water of my anger is always just below the surface waiting for the slightest reason to explode.
Tonight it was a stupid piece of software that I have been struggling with for three days now. Even following step-by-step the directions from Microsoft’s “help” service I was unable to make Windows OneCare work. And I’ve been mucking about with computers for thirty years. How on Earth do amateurs every get this stuff to work? My rage was limited to repeated screaming and yelling, and few hammer-fist strikes to the desktop. Afterwards I cried and cried. My sobbing continued for a good twenty minutes.
I don’t want my mom to die. No one wants anyone they love to die, but to face losing my mom just six months after losing my wife is almost more than I can bear. I hurt inside all the time, I feel like I can’t inhale all the way, and I can barely focus long enough to eat or dress myself. I understand in some dim way that the bouts of anger I’m having are really about two things. First I have some legitimate anger. Michele left me, and now my mom (who couldn’t or wouldn’t stop smoking) is going to die too. Next it’ll be my dad. Nekko, the older cat, is showing signs of age. She’ll die. And then finally Taz will go and I’ll be all alone.
It feels like everyone and everything I love dies. I’m a monster who is toxic to the ones I love. I use the anger to push things I love away from me. That’s the second part of my out bursts. Taz climbs into the crook of my arm and starts to lick me, which is her way of saying, “I love you”, only I can’t stand to be accepted and loved when I feel like I’m losing everything. I get mad at her for loving me no matter what, and I fly into a rage. After the storm passes, she comes out of hiding and climbs into the crook of my arm and licks me. Love is truly amazing.
The energy I spent earlier in my incensed rage as left me weak and spent now. I think the bubble that popped earlier when I learned I wasn’t seeing things (literally) wrong also released a lot of energy that had been pent up.
Tomorrow I’ll get up and breathe in and out.
And then I’ll go from there.