I almost caved...to stress, to pressure, to searching for a resolution under time constraints...but I didn't. It would have been the easy way out, yes. But would I have taken the correct steps in helping to rectify the situation, no. In fact, beer would have only made the situation worse, and deep down I knew that. I just had to take time, sit down, and sort through all of my feelings and thoughts.
When a loved one is put into a potential dangerous and harmful situation, for me, there is nothing I wouldn't do. Literally. Although I can not go into any detail about the events, just take a moment to think about your worst fears coming true. And those fears directly affecting your best friend, the one person you love more than any thing in the world.
Anger is my achilles heal, which I will discuss more in another blog. It is typically my first response, my first reaction, if you will, to a situation in which a friend's well-being is threatened. I have battled with anger for the majority of my life. Let me define my anger for you. First, it is not linked in any way to frustration. Missing a lift is frustrating, cleaning up after people at work is frustrating, forgetting to dry your work clothes is frustrating. For me, anger is an emotion that occurs like the flip of a switch, some times resulting in irrational responses such as punching the closest inanimate object, to uncontrollable tears and trembling hands. Other times, clinching my jaw so much that it hurts the next day. The majority of the time, I get blind-sided by my anger. I am a very laid back person by nature, but when a certain button gets pushed repeatedly, I let it build up, although I have no feelings of it building up, and it ends in a grand explosion. It is all a very quick process. How long does it take your vehicle to go from zero to sixty? That is how my anger works.
For example, years back I was with three friends at a bar playing pool. Three chicks sat down at a table close to the pool table, and immediately started making rude comments about my friends. Granted we were an odd four-some...two of us in workout clothes and two in business suits, with an age difference of about 10-12 years. One chick would not stop with her comments, just loud enough for me to hear. Before anyone else knew what was going on, I threw my pool stick on the table, leaned down in her face, and asked her what the fuck her problem was. I told her to fucking stand up if she wanted to say anything else, and before I knew it her 5'4" boyfriend was in my face...or chest rather. Her boyfriend, the bouncer, told me to leave. I insulted her and her boyfriend a few more times, turned and punched the back of a chair, knocking almost everything on the table to the floor, and headed for the door. Once outside, I threw a handful of quarters into the parking lot and then drove home...cooling down on the way.
Last weekend my protective nature leading to an explosion of anger was exposed again. This time I had no control of the situation, and once I began to put the pieces together that lead to a very unexpected outcome, my car door paid the price. And then my tires, as I peeled out of the parking lot like some teenager showing off a newly discovered talent. During moments like this, my first thought is that beer will help. I actually went as far as to pull off at a gas station with the intention of purchasing beer. And it wasn't a moment of rationality that stopped me...it was, instead, the tears streaming down my face. Hell, I can't expose my soft side in public! :)
This day ended with a good outcome, partially because there always seems to be someone out there slapping me in the back of the head when I face moments like these, and partially because of the support system that surrounds me. If it were not for a great friend from Dallas and one man that cares more about people than making a shit ton of money, I am not sure where I would be or what would have happened. As far as my anger goes, it is something that I work on every day...to understand and control. And if you read this far, don't worry, it is highly unlikely that you will ever see me explode...most people haven't.
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