literature

Letter to Self III

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VampyreDearest's avatar
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Literature Text

Memo:

You've been working on this for a long time. Five years may not seem like long, but that comprises about 28% of your life, somewhere between a quarter and a third of the moments you've spent on this planet, breathing this air, living among these people.

What have you accomplished?

Let's go back to the source to evaluate. Maybe the anger started in sometime during elementary school. As an estimate, let's call on fourth grade, when the girls in your class--the only real friends you had--made you cry for an entire recess because they intentionally excluded you from a game of Follow the Leader. Follow the Leader, for Christ's sake! That's nothing, a tiny, simplistic game, where if you bothered them they wouldn't even have to talk to you. You would have been content to follow and say nothing, just for the companionship.

(On a side note, maybe that's where your social independence became prevalent--the starting line on that course on uncharted territory that you created yourself even as you walked it. I can only think of a few situations after that where you willingly, passively accepted the backseat, never battled authority, always only followed.)

You hid the anger. (Did you recognize it for what it was?) You released it, perhaps, in athletics (soccer became a release for you eventually, I know), but mostly you kept it to yourself. You didn't know what to do with it. You didn't know why you were so upset to be alone. (How could you have known then that it would be one of your greatest fears now?)

You connected with another boy that year, a boy who needed fireflies to light the way through his personal eclipse. He legitimately cared for you (he still does), perhaps the first peer to do so; and you returned (and still return) the sentiment. You didn't need those other kids, the girls who stared down their noses at you while giggling over their exclusive amusement. You had him. You had him and swings to ride to extinction and smiles to share for eternity. You and this boy had a connection, one that you didn't realize would last for the next nine years or more. In your own way, you loved him (and maybe the feeling lingers still).

That connection surely weakened the hold of the anger bearing down on your insides, but come fifth grade...

You managed to find someone in your classroom who absolutely hated you. Remember the bullying and the rudeness and haughtiness and the "counseling"? It's pretty entertaining in retrospect, but the anger you attempted to disperse through words was quelled by condescension. The mediator, the adult, asked what had happened, how you felt about it, and then implied that your feelings didn't matter, were simply the product of overreaction.

(Overreaction. That's the button he pushed last night. And how did you respond? More overreaction.)

That cage of hurt and anger continued to form around you, to bulk up on the iron supplements it found in fights with Mother, fights with friends, more bullying in middle school, distance and distaste.

Remember when you hit a girl? Back in eighth grade, there was that one moment when the frustration became so unbearable--and she so unwavering in her blatant, intentional ignorance of your words--and the desperation climaxed--and you struck her. The back of her head (because she was walking away from you), a solid impact with the palm of your hand. And she turned and she looked at you and there was a moment of tenseness, hesitation. You realized immediately what you'd done. You felt like crying, but I don't think you did; you never did, in those days, not where the public could see you. You feel like crying now, reliving the moment.

I wish I could tell you not to do it. I wish it were that simple. But I know it wouldn't have done any good to drop a line of warning. You knew better. It was the one thing you'd never wished to do, the one legitimate regret you have now, the one disappointment that you can't get past.

I'd like to think you've come a long way since then--in five years. I'd like to think that the depression you battled freshman year somehow helped you manage your emotions better, especially your anger. I'd like to think that, but I'm not entirely sure it's true.

You're better at containment, but still you snap at some of the stupidest, most insignificant things. You have some of lamest pet peeves I have ever, ever seen. And people don't realize this, but all they have to do is bring up your stupid, stupid tendency to overreact--or point out any other flaw in your anger management with anything less than total kindness and understanding--and your mind snaps.

That's what he did you last night. That's what one of your best friends pulled on you--snide putdowns all day followed up with a grand criticism of your ability to cope with anger. "You always do that. You always get so pissed off when something doesn't go perfectly or when someone does something and it's not how you would have done it. It's irritating. I'm tired of hearing you complain."

You slipped under a shield of defensiveness; that was where you went wrong. You allowed him under your super-taut skin. You blew up. Profanity emerged from your lips, profanity you immediately regretted, and you stormed away.

You cried; he made you cry; you let him get there; you made yourself cry.

(Do you realize that that was the first time you could remember crying in front of him, whom you had known for ten years? It was a rainstorm that lasted for maybe an hour, and when you saw him again to make up, it stormed another long sixty minutes. That time he held you. That time the reasons weren't only anger.)

So maybe there's been progress. I hope to God you're not just holding it in, allowing it to rot your core. I don't think you are.

I think you've accomplished a lot: you've shifted your focus from yourself to your friends to God to the world. You have patience. You have a quiet strength and calmness about you, when you're not filling fireflies with your excess energy. You are yourself, and nothing less.

You know what to do with negativity now. You know how to manage. (You may not always act as you'd like, but the intent is there, the action there a greater percentage of the time.)

Don't let them tell you that you haven't changed since then, in five years.

From the Office of Retrospective Learning.
Started last week, finished tonight. I think this one is pretty straightforward.

1 June 2010.
© 2010 - 2024 VampyreDearest
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mrcbax's avatar
Wow...I could really relate to a lot of this that you had here. Is it strange that my silly regret is the opposite though? I found my self a couple times in that same situation, subject to bullying and wishing to just knock them one good time in the head. I never did though all through my school years. I knew I could take them, I knew I was tougher than them, farm chores will do that to a kid, but I was always influenced by trying to be the mature one, trying to do the right thing, and later on wished I would have stood up for myself a few more times instead. Strange how life works isn't it?