That's the first question a friend asked me when I told her the news. It stopped me cold and I had to think about it.
I don't think of myself as an angry person. I get upset, pissed off, and annoyed; and I can go into tirades against certain of our politicians and people who let modifiers dangle, but I don't usually suffer from road (or any other kind of) rage.
Thinking of my specific situation, though, it seems to me that there are two kinds of anger that might be appropriate. First, there's the two-year-old temper tantrum in which I'll lie on the floor kicking my heels and holding my breath until I turn blue in the face and THEN you'll do what I say. It's using my helplessness and frustration to try and change things. And believe me, if I thought it would work, I'd try it. But I'm not really the lie-on-the-floor etc. kind of person.
Then there's a kind of dull, burning resentment based on the feeling that life isn't fair.
I know it isn't fair. I've had a blessed life -- a childhood and youth filled with interesting people and places, brought up in a loving family whose attitude, when the water went off and there was a cholera epidemic and the government was about to fall, was to prepare for everything and make jokes.
I had the brains and means to fulfill my educational dreams, and have had a career I loved -- and was able to retire before even that perfect career burned me out.
Most of all, I've had 41 years (anniversary on September 3) in the most wonderful marriage I could have wished for. I daydreamed when I was a teenager of ending up in a big New England farmhouse on a hill, working and writing with a husband who continued to surprise and delight me through my life. Daydreams really can come true.
Add to that two children who have also constantly surprised and delighted me, who have all the characteristics I dreamed my children would have but have gone far beyond my dreams, and who then had the amazing talent and taste to choose equally wonderful spouses.
I'm not saying that this cancer balances things out, and that cosmically the scales are now even. I would have been perfectly happy to have my unfair advantages continue, and wouldn't have complained a bit if they had. But a dull burning resentment seems even more wasteful of the time I have left than a temper tantrum would be.
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4 comments:
Dear Lucie again,
This one really stoked me up! Interesting question and even more interesting answer, which I again appreciated. You are a role model for appreciating the blessings that you've had in this life. But everything is relative, and you are entitled to feel resentment about "fairness" and "unfairness." I remember when my father was killed suddenly when I was ten---talk about resentment and a perception of unfairness. I guess I'd have to say angry in my case. But anger is not a bad word. In fact the shrinks tell us that anger is as valid and important an emotion as happiness. The psychs say that expressing anger and "using" in appropriate ways can give us a certain vitality.
The way I finally came to terms with my own anger over certain things, was to de-personalize the anger-causing event. That is, my motto is, "There's always SOMETHING."
Okay--A-muse, over and out, Love, Love, Love, A.
Obviously the attempted operation was a disappointment, but you are still getting treatment. You responded well to the first round of treatment and you seem really strong. I would think that you would help yourself by trying to keep up a positive outlook, as promised by your green banana theme. That being said, a lot of terrific creative writing has been done by people under stress: memoirs, fiction, nonfiction, you name it. So if you always wanted to write a no-holds barred expose about subject X, it might help channel some of your emotions in a positive way. And I am not just saying this from self-interest as a big fan of your writing.
This Blue Spruce guy is quite smart. Wow-great letter.
Definitely good to get anger out and then over and done with. Even just the other day I heard a blurb on the radio (2.2 second clip) that angry people live substantially shorter lives than non-angry. So there.
Hugs and big warm smiles.
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