Acknowledging My Co-Author

                                                  Acknowledging My Co-Author

  I have been thinking on this for sometime and have written about it here...however due to it's unmitigated desire to do those who possess it harm, I will tell you more about my scars. The ones I inflicted on myself and others in it's name. I was not an angry child. I could be chatty and inquisitive and even though my family had an under current fierce with anger it would take years for me to fall into it's eddy. I think at ten after I have sought my mother's protection. Only to find that she already knew and condoned my suffering. Did I begin to know it's depths. It is a secondary emotion. And I gave it free roam in my life and it's price was high. Anger became the co author to my life. There was very little I did that it did not touch. When my brother, one year younger and full of a natural mischief would misbehave, I would rage at him. I would hold him down on the floor. Pinning him with my knees and yell in his face. WHY? Why did he get into trouble? Whenever he did, I got beat too. We were opposites he and I. He would absorb the abuse of our father's own temper and he would just keep being him. He was not touched by it. Maybe it was his way of fighting back. I never knew his reasoning, but I paid the price over and over. I played by the rules. Rules were so important in my parent's home. I was as good as I could be and he was as bad as he could be and it never evened out. No, the punishments continued and my anger grew. Fed by the knowledge that I had no control in my life. I could not stop my father. I could not cajole my mother into loving me and I could not make my brother tow the line. I was adrift and I had no outlet, but those rare times that I cornered my brother and begged, pleaded, offered bribes and in the end threatened him. But none of it mattered. It seemed like there was no one in our family that I could effect and I seethed with the rage that that knowledge created in me.

  For so many years, no one say that monster inside me. That beast I could usually keep chained, but not always. When I lost a grasp on it's lead, I was powerless to bring it to bay. It did not matter the price. I was unable to form rational thought. I just had to let it out. It had clawed at my insides. Marking my soul with it's unrelenting hunger. It's need to destroy my world. And I allowed it. It was my doing. I can blame no others. I could be kind and nice. The person I would have been if I had had real parents. Normal ones, who showed love and concern. Set rules that everyone followed. Ones that chose to control their own beasts instead of feeding their young to assuage their own desires. It took a lot, usually to get me to lose control of myself. Oh, the line would be baited and someone would bite. They would shake the hook while casting an eye up at me. Knowing that I was a lazy fisherman. I had no heart for it. I would let out line and allow them to swim freely, they thought. The reel would spin just like my mind and I would bide my time. Eventually it would come. They would go too far. Believing that there were no consequences for stealing what they thought was a free meal and then when they were full of themselves. While they rested and laughed, I would strike. Yanking back that line with painful words that always hit home. In their surprise I would set that hook deep into soft tissue and I would rip them back to me. Oh, they would know. It was important that they knew, it was done. I would play no more. I took no prisoners and I was in no way repentant.

  I told myself that I was righteous. That they needed to learn. But really I just wanted to be left alone and my temper helped with that too. I was quiet. Still as the grave. My childhood had taught me that skill. And I prayed that others would just pass by. As my life had always been, I was a solitary soul. That is not to say I was happy, I was far from that. And I was incredibly lonely. But, it was all I knew and while I watched others have relationships, I knew I could not. People could not be trusted. And again my anger doubled, tripled. Black mold gone unchecked. I gave myself leeway. I got so good at making excuses for my anger. I would whip out that platinum victim card and made sure respect was paid. I was addicted to the drama of it all. I was so self indulgent. Somehow reasoning that because I hurt, because I was cheated out of so much, that it was acceptable to pass that pain on to others. The more I poured it out, the more I had left in me. It fed on itself and multiplied immeasurably. I had become not better than my mother. I was so focused on me, on my past and what had been stolen from me, that I did not acknowledge my own part in the matter. Words did have power and I had used them to wound far too long. So what to do with this interloper called anger? This beast that I have continually eluded to? The dog that must be brought low. It all came down to one thing. Control. I had to acknowledge that I had control. Not over everything, but over many. I could change the things I said and did. I could also hold others accountable for what they said to me. I had to stand up and realize that I am in charge of my life. It was such a revelation to me. I had never thought that I had control over anything, least of all over my temper. I came here and I wrote it all out. All of it. I took the inventory of the crimes I had committed and those that had been committed against me. And I simple let it go.

  Somehow in writing it out, I found a peace I had never known. I honored the child in my. The one that was so angry that I could not defend herself. That I was unable to keep safe. And as I accepted her feelings, I was able to make amends. From there it got easier and easier. I have no anger for my parents.  They are who they choose to be. I cannot change that. It is not mine to do. We must all come to the place where we lay all the hurt out and examine things. They cannot be buried. Trust me on that. I have tried. The more you bury anger, the more anger grows. It is an unreasonable harvest. You may try to ignore it, as it rustles like dry corn husks. Scrapping the back of your mind. Invading your relationships. Poisoning your own heart and killing all that you love. Write it out, talk it out. Lance that boil of puss and venom and bleed it all out. And then, let it heal. No one ever gets to go back and change things. What an intoxicating idea that is. But no. We must march endlessly forward. Looking back only to remember the love seasoned with the bittersweetness of loss. Acknowledge the regret and vow to change what you can. That is all any of us can do. I wish you peace as we close out another year. Please choose to make this coming year one with less things to apologize for. Measure your words. If you must pour out pain, use a teaspoon. It is so much easier to clean up grief by the teaspoon than by the gallon.