Nobel Peace Prize
When I don't eat on time, I get tense; my head starts to hurt, and I feel like my blood vessels are filled with fizzy Coke. It is a physical feeling and it's awful.
Once, in France, my coleague J told me I had to calm down. HOW IN F*** AM I SUPPOSED TO F-ING BE CONVICED TO CALM DOWN WHEN I'M SUFFERRING FROM FOOD PANIC. As if I'm CHOOSING to be that way. It took a momentous act of will to not rip her to pieces.
I will never with the Nobel Peace Prize.
One time, in Vancouver, my dad drove us around for FOUR HOURS, changing his mind, doing an errand, picking up Auntie C to wait for us. When I finally said I HAVE TO EAT RIGHT NOW he gave me that "you are being disrespectful look," and as much as I wanted to GRIND HIM INTO THE SIDEWALK, I figured that would just delay my next meal.
What do I do? Do I cry? Do I fight? No, I do what I've done for 30 years. I swallow it and suffer.
My dad is an expert at causing resentment. It is his talent. It is his special calling. You'd be surprised at his skill.
My mama tells me to forgive, she tells me I can't get into heaven with all that baggage. My coworkers who I vent to expect in a naive, white way that there is a Hollywood-style reconciliation, and that I am just being hard headed for not trying to find reconciliation.
Well, I just had a break through. The reconciliation will come between me and my father after, and only after, I get to yell "YOU ARE AN INCONSIDERATE, SELF CENTERED, HATEFUL, CAPRICIOUS, JACKASS." I will yell it for hours until I'm tired.
Maybe then there will be the reconciliation that the white people expect. Maybe. But not before.
For 20 years, my dad has wondered why I never say "I love you, too." Maybe he thinks I do it to hurt him, or to be rebellious. Here's the honest-to-God, 20 year old truth. I don't tell my dad "I love you, too" because it simply is not true. Why would I lie?
I will go to Las Vegas to visit my parents at the end of March. It's mid February, and I'm already getting ready to argue with him. Do you understand? It causes me so much anxiety to see him that I rehearse my arguements weeks in advance.
On any given day of the year, I am capable of knotting myself into an angry tangle, just imagining the next arguement. Or going over what I should have said at a past arguement. I am on the verge of tears right now.
People tell me to let it go.
HOW ABOUT THIS: I will tie a porcelain toilet to your back with barbed wire; I'll cover it with super glue and then for good measure, nail it into your flesh with railroad spikes before I set you on fire.
Now, YOU let it go. Ready, go! Let it go now! Let go!
My parents' generation does not deal with their mistakes; they just expect you to forget them. So, since I'm one of those people that doesn't forget, I have to carry that anger baggage around. I can't let it go, because it's strapped to me with barbed wire and glue and nailed to my flesh for good measure. So no, I can't let it go.
And you can't help me out of it.
So I guess I will spend my adult life painfully tied, glued, and nailed to my own anger.
I have a lot of anger. As a rule, you should avoid making me angry, because my cup runneth over, and you don't want to get splashed. If you apologize quickly, I will forgive you even quicker. Seriously, the grudge reserved for my father takes up all my energy; I don't have any extra energy available to hold extraneous grudges.
Ok everyone, it's over. Now we can all see how closely hunger and anger dance together in my psyche. And now you all know why I'm SO FAT.
1 comment:
ah, but you can strap on the porcelain toilet of anger on my back only if i let you. who are you to strap on the PTofA on my back? i allow you to put anger on me. so this leads me to think the following:
1. our feelings are perfectly valid. they exist for a reason and so must be acknowledged. they are also usually more complicated than just 'I am angry' or 'I hate my father.'
2. we are responsible for what we feel. yes, prior history can influence or give context to a set of emotions (disappointment, anger, resentment) but there is nothing saying that we MUST repeat those feelings. we can stop it. they are, after all, only feelings.
3. we are not responsible for what others feel (unless we did something to provoke them, like poking them in the eye or something). your dad's issues are HIS. they belong solely to him.
4. unexpressed feelings taint everything: under every interaction, every conversation, every dinner, every thought, there is a feeling attached to it. then these feelings/thoughts get turned into behavior and something equally stilted and negative gets produced. and then the loop keeps rolling.
5. feelings are negotiable: this is sort of related to #2. expressing feelings doesn't solve everything; it means that we have to recognize that our feelings are formed in response to our thoughts and sometimes our thinking can be ... muddled. (muddled because of different contributions to the problem, assumptions, judgments and intentions - on all sides)
a counselor of mine, when i was working through some things, gave me a good way of looking at how feelings/thoughts keep me from moving past certain issues. she said that when i was ready to let go of some things, i would. (not saying you have to let go, because clearly you're not ready to.) it looks like this: thoughts -> feelings -> behavior -> result (and then back to thoughts). she'd have me describe a situation, then describe what i'm thinking in response to it, then what my feelings are about it, then what behavior that leads to, then the result of that behavior. she showed me how the things i think just are (i have intimacy problems with men) are a process that i've begun.
thus ends the extent of my advice (which this isn't really and which has been given in the spirit of care and compassion i have for you, jp.). but here is a book you might want to check out: Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen). chapter 5 is especially good.
is this white? it's totally touchy-feely, yuppie, dr. phil, harvard negotiation project stuff. but it's not useless.
Post a Comment