Thursday, September 8, 2022


I don't know why Heidi likes to sleep like this; she probably doesn't know why either.  It's funny/sad how we do things and don't know why we do these things.

I bought groceries on Monday and came home and started cooking.  I was making chili for the big guy and chicken spaghetti sauce.  When I make chili, I make a huge pot of it, enough for ten or twelve lunches.  I chop up all the veg that I put in it, the onions, the mushrooms, the peppers and the jalapenos from the garden.  I used four cans of kidney beans and three cans of diced tomatoes.  There was stuff all over the kitchen and I was slowly cleaning up. I was just about ready to sit down and rest when I thought, I'll put the cranberry ginger ale away in the fridge.  When I did that, a can dropped and exploded.  It went over everything in the kitchen, the cupboards, the counters, the pantry door, the appliances, me and it also hit the TV room floor and the door to the basement.  

So like so many people in the world, I blamed someone else.  I yelled at my husband, blamed him because it was pop I bought for him.  It wasn't his fault but I wanted to yell and blame someone, someone else.  And then I started yelling at him about all the things that are bugging me right now, like his lack of help around the house, how he's dealing with his family, how miserable and angry he is, anything that I could think of, I dragged it on in and yelled it at him.

He went for a car ride and I cried and cleaned the kitchen.  It took me an hour.  An hour for me to think about what's really bothering me.  I take care of a lot of people, including my husband and I often feel that it goes unnoticed or forgotten.  And it's not just me, my husband and I have supported people financially over the past eleven years.  My husband's daughter and her boyfriend lived in our rental so they could pay off their debts and save money for a house and then they left and said, don't talk to us again.  Another friend's daughter and her boyfriend moved there because they needed cheaper rent; they lived in our rental and were pigs.  When the boyfriend moved out he called me a cunt when I asked him to clean. And then there's Gracie who flooded the place and introduced us to german cockroaches, leaving the place filthy again and requiring extensive repairs. Even the young lady who lives there now is nice enough but she gets a steep discount on the rent.  We also have a condo that I rent out to another woman we used to work with and she also gets a good discount.  

But there's also us taking care of Jack when he was taken away from Gracie and even before that when we cared for him when she was working or stoned or drunk, and somehow we became the bad guys who are trying to take Jack away from Gracie.  

And there's me not taking care of myself because I didn't want my co-workers to be short this summer or have holidays cancelled and now I'm in more pain from limping for the past two months at work.  My right leg is sore now too.

So I dumped all of that on him when it was about me. 

Anger is a strange thing.  I sits waiting for the right moment to spring into action.  It doesn't leave on it's own, it waits.  When my ex husband and I sold our house and he left me to clean up the mess, I was angry.  As I rage cleaned, it's a thing, I started to cry and cry and cry.  I realized that underneath all of that rage and anger was a deep sadness.  I think that was the beginning of me getting a handle on my anger; I started to feel the grief that I had kept bottled up inside myself for so long and as I did that, my anger started to subside.

I still get angry and I still get angry and misdirect my anger, see above, but it's much better than it was. My dad was an angry man.  He thought his anger protected him and maybe at one time it had protected him but it also drove away his children and made it so hard for his own wife to love him.  He was abrasive and often blew up; you never knew what would set him off.  He didn't really have any friends.  He was alone in his fortress of anger, nursing all of his old wounds.  He thought he was safe but he was just alone.

And that's what anger does, it just isolates you.  None of us can change the past.  I can't make my dad a kind, loving parent.  I can't make my grandmother a sober, loving parent for my dad, and so on and so on and so on.  We come from our ancestors and all of their faults and mistakes.  But I can do better now.  I can let go of my old grievances and forgive my parents.  I can forgive myself too for not being a better parent to my own children.  I can continue to strive to be more patient with Jack and model better behavior and give him coping skills I didn't learn until I was an adult.  I can keep trying to let go of my old anger, to feel the sadness that goes with it and then to let it go because it's not helping me anymore.

28 comments:

  1. We travel with what has come down to us from the past. I know that it is not my place to say this but I hope you make up with The Big Guy and try to explain your angry outburst. Reading this blogpost might be a good starting point. He has been going through some shit recently and he needs your love just as you need his.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We had a long talk last night and I apologized.

      Delete
  2. 37paddington:
    You’re both going through a lot. Patch things up with the Big Guy so it can at least be the two of you taking on the world. You’ve probably already done that. And he probably gets what’s going on. After that, promise to charge market rate rent to your next tenant, preferably not a relative or friend. You deserve it. Anger is sadness turned inside out. Sending you a great big hug, my friend.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Who among us has not had such a day. I liked the link to the rage cleaning lady, it resonated!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's not a good thing for me to project my anger onto him though. I need to own it.

      Delete
  4. I learned somewhere that anger is always a secondary emotion and is covering up something else. So when I start to feel angry, I try to analyze where it's coming from. Sometimes I blow up anyway because I (like you here) am on overload and need to release the tension or I will implode instead of explode. The saying "the straw that broke the camel's back" is terribly accurate. I'm glad that you're working on it. That's all any of us can do. We're human. xoxo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If I were a house, there would always be scaffolding up around me. I am a work in progress.

      Delete
  5. An insightful post. I am glad you were able to track down the source of your feelings. I hope things improve for you. I am sure you are appreciated by many people but, sadly, we don't tell people this often enough.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, we don't tell people we appreciate them enough.

      Delete
  6. I agree with everything Rosemarie said. She is wise. You are too.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Nothing to do with the content of your post, but everything to do with the photo:

    Heidi has an active imaginary inner life. She's playing "Hospital" and is pretending that she's getting an MRI. Maybe even an fMRI, if someone would provide her with a cognitive task while she's got her head enclosed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How do you know about MRI scanners? I doubt there is a coil to fit around a dog's head but I would love to see what her brain does.
      We do have a 9.5 MRI scanner at our hospital that is used for rats and research. Too small for Heidi to fit into.

      Delete
    2. How do I know about MRI scanners? 1) I was a volunteer subject in one (for 3 hours!), 2) I worked in cognitive psych research in a hospital, and 3) I have personal and family connections to the inventors of MRI.
      Plus I like dogs.

      Delete
    3. Given my background, the association with MRI scanners from the Headless Heidi pic was immediate. Given your profession, I knew you'd get-- and hopefully appreciate-- the reference.
      So I couldn't resist making an off-topic spontaneous connection between two strangers (you and me), hoping it would briefly lighten your day-- as it did mine. (Sort of like those mutually amusing conversations one used to have, pre-6-feet-apart covid, with strangers in supermarket check-out lines. I miss those.)

      Delete
    4. You did make me smile and thank you for that. The funny thing is, my husband installed MRI scanners in the eighties. The last MRI he installed at our hospital is still being used for research.

      Delete
  8. On this Friday, I hope you and your hubby are both doing better ... just getting through some of the crap life throws us is so frigging difficult ... we all want you two to be OK for your own sake as well as for Jack's!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We had a video call with Jack on Thursday which helped. And then I apologized again. We're goot.

      Delete
  9. I think I would have been totally pissed off if that happened to me and it's natural to blame someone else. We all do it. Anger is a bitch. I decided to forgive my abusive mother, not for her to be honest, but for me. Best thing I ever did. My brother hasn't and he's physically and emotionally really, really unwell.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was mad at myself but chose to take it out on him. The pop was pink so it was at least easy to see when I had to clean it up:)

      Delete
  10. My ex was an angry man so I get where you're coming from. And you really do have an awful lot on your plate. I took care of my grandson again today and I was on my knees. There's a reason you have kids when you're young!! Please give yourself some grace!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My father was such an angry man and I see that in myself but it's so much nicer to project it onto others, than to look at myself. Damn it.

      Delete
  11. Thank you for your honesty. And accepting your anger. It's such a battle all the time, I find. I like to imagine myself as a composed and calm person but that's never going to happen.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I read this after I read the subsequent post, I'm so glad you talked and made up.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Our dog likes it dark when she naps and will often cover her eyes with her paws (so cute!). I think Heidi is also covering her eyes from the light by sleeping with her head under something.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I was glad to see in the subsequent post that you two made up. Occasional outbursts are natural and as you said they often indicate a deep well of otherwise unacknowledged feelings. You DO take care of a lot of people and it's only natural that would weigh on you.

    When I'm doing the dishes at night I sometimes find myself grumbling about Dave not doing enough around the house. It's a common married-person feeling! (And of course I'm conveniently forgetting that Dave is the one who cooked dinner!)

    ReplyDelete
  15. As long as I've known you here in this space, you have offered wise words and a sort of scrupulous honesty and examination about yourself -- I say "offered" because your words are holy. I learn from them, from you. I am glad that you and your man "made up" -- I read that post before this one, and like Steve, I agree that occasional outbursts are natural. I also agree that you do extraordinary things all the damn time. You need to rest, to listen to your body. I'm sending you gratitude and love.

    ReplyDelete