That Angry Man
Tags: Confessions, Prompt, Energy, Short Story, Anger

Photo by Ryan Snaadt on Unsplash

That Angry Man

This might be the deepest dive I have done here. The simple answer is that the hardest emotion that I find hard to accept is anger. I have talked about getting agitated when I drive. Where I live has some of the worst traffic on the east coast. I drive about five kilometers to the gym. I live in a residential area. By the time I get to the gym using only local roads there is one spot that has ten lanes. Six on one side and four on the other. Sometimes all of those lanes are packed.

I get agitated at drivers. I don’t tend to curse at them. I don’t tend to curse at anyone at all. I use profanity so little that when I do friends look at me like I have been possessed. I used the “F” word in a joke once and the person I am closest to here looked at me and said, “I think that is the first time I have ever heard you say that word”. I have known her for twenty-five years. I have used it before. I just tend not to use them when I am angry. I choose to be more creative with my words when I am angry.

I needed to point out all of that to get to the issue. The anger that I find hardest to accept is anger that is directed at myself. I do curse. I do use that word and many others. The reason that nobody hears them is that I only tend to direct that level of anger at myself. It would be easy to tell you that I only to that when I have seriously messed up. It would be easy to tell you that I only do that when things have gone horribly wrong. The problem is that is just not the case. I get angry and curse at myself for doing things that I would be amused at if someone else did them. Like misplacing my phone. I have told myself how stupid I am for putting my phone down where I forgot I put it. I have done the same thing about my wallet. Putting things away wrong, spilling something. Things I would help someone else do and reassure them that everyone does that, I will yell and even curse at myself over.

I have high expectations for people. I have high expectations for myself. I am a huge advocate when something goes wrong to figure out a solution. Only after things are fixed to I worry at all about accountability. I do that for everyone but myself. For myself it tends to be accountability and then try to fix the problem, which usually takes about thirty seconds once I calm down and think about it.

Not to jump to another day’s prompt. But until I looked at today’s prompt I really hadn’t thought about this as an issue. I have a great time with my brain. It rarely races places I don’t want it to go. When I swim or walk I let it off leash and let it go where it wants. More than ninety percent of the time it goes good places. I do not have issues with wanting to hurt myself. I love the person I see in the mirror. When I look at the person in the mirror I do not see that angry person. He only comes out when I have messed up simple tasks. He doesn’t come out when it was work related. He doesn’t come out when I am doing serious things. He doesn’t come out when I can’t find the words to put on a page.

The only person that tends to see this angry person is, well I don’t even see him because he never looks at me in the mirror. He is just an angry voice that screams when I can’t find my keys or wallet.