I’m not quick to anger. I’m whatever the opposite of that is. I cower in the face of strong emotion, head between my knees waiting for the event to end. I react so strongly to perceived violence I once started crying uncontrollably when I thought a cat in a movie had died. Without warning I suddenly feel everything with every cell in my body. The simplest solution is to shut down. I’ve felt my spirit break so many times I should put it on my resume. If I just stare straight ahead and don’t let anyone see me cry everything will work out, right? 

When I do get angry I immediately worry I’m making a big deal out of nothing.  Spending all of my energy repressing the feeling instead of dealing with whatever makes me angry.  Granted, some of it is useless to worry about like anger at consumerism and sexism and injustice that seems woven into the fabric of human nature.  The lines we draw are just segments of the same circles.  My anger at myself is another beast entirely.  Like a cancer eating away at my insides, unable to fight it without hurting myself.  I want to not be angry all the time.  After getting as far from the source as possible it’s time to excise the parts I carried with me.

Compromising my ambitions for others’ opinions about how the world works.  I took to heart the “rules” as stated by supposed authorities.  When I’m chronically lonely at school and can’t relate to anyone my mother’s advice is to be patient because it gets better.  The number of things I didn’t do because I was told not to could fill a lifetime.  “I’m stopping you for your own good because I know better,” my mother pleaded.  And she was, even though she didn’t.  Left to my own devices I would surely have been a teen statistic.  My mother still talks about how great my my high school boyfriend was.  Like those were the good ole days, or something.

He had the appearance and personality of an upstanding young gentleman and he came from a “good” family.  I spent all of my time with him from tenth grade until leaving for college.  We had non-stop sex and not just the vanilla kind. Blossoming youths in the early 90s we witnessed the birth of the internet together.  And then used it for its prime directive – Rule #34.  We tried every position, every combination, every taboo, every roleplay, every kinky thing we could conceivably attempt. That’s why I never should have trusted my mother’s assumptions about how the world works.  She doesn’t live in the same world as me.