It is for me. almost easier than love. there’s little convincing needed in anger and it works so well to cover up other emotions. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since being away it’s that. I reach for anger before pulling any others off the shelf.
There’s plenty of reasons for me to be mad: ringworm on the face, money getting stolen from the house I was living in (twice), constantly being looked at as slutty b/c I’m a white woman and I must want to be hit on if I happen to make eye contact, being looked at as an ATM and constantly asked for money b/c I’m white (good training for parenthood I suppose), loving kids with terrible diseases & no parents who just want love and didn’t ask for this life.
The hidden emotions: hopelessness, insecurity, guilt, fear: of the future, my ability to help, my sanity, death. There’s more I haven’t even tried to uncover because I’m simply too scared. I can’t figure out how the world got so fucked up or any way to possibly fix it. Yet I feel responsible: for the world being the way it is b/c I represent long ago oppression (and possible new colonialism). I feel like I need to fix it. And I never will. I can’t, not alone. All I can really do is take a piece and make it better. Try not to inflict unnecessary harm. But I want to fix it all. I want to make sense of it. Maybe make sense of me along the way.
And the oddest part? While I’m uncomfortable in many ways in a different culture, I know when I get back I’ll be just as uncomfortable. Which will push me to action. A good thing, yes, but once I’ve got a handle on it all I’ll be leaving again. Why? Well b/c I paid for a trip and because, most of all, I’m afraid if I settle down, make some adult decisions, I might actually get everything I want, even the things I won’t admit to myself.
And what the hell would I do with myself then?
October 7, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Yes, many of us are often just trying to survive…but in different ways. Physically is the most difficult kind because it doesn’t offer the opportunity to suffer emotionally. Still, for all it is worth many of us are just trying to survive in one way or another. This is truly one of the most difficult times, I think for many people.
Anger is an unbelievable emotion that just today I tried out to the extreme. It is liberating and binding all at once to feel completely and unabashedly angry. How can that be?
I am happy for the knowledge you have in the world and its wonderful people, and shitty people. I learned very young how mean people can be and for a while I thought everyone was curel. Was it so bad that I was just a hungry kid and needed some food? So bad that someone else had to point out that my mom was a single mom who clearly had brought this poverty on herself? Maybe it was bad, maybe that cruel person had not yet understood how luxurious it is to be in a position to hold that judgment. I don’t know, but eventually I learned that there are some amazing people out there — like the person that gave our family a Christmas one year when we had nothing else. Presents and everything. People really can be wonderful.
I wish you all the love in the world!
-Sheri