SOLSC 1: Anger as Camouflage

I’ve got a personal archive: my datebooks back to 1963, my journals starting in mid-1971. I’ve been rereading my journals looking for any interesting “Fifty Years Ago Today” items, but this one, from February 6, 1972, is more interesting to me as a look into my psyche. I had been having a fantasy about having an argument with a man in my therapy group, who I often had actual arguments with. (It’s also worth noting that I don’t easily, then or now, actually get angry with anyone in real life.)

“Had an insight into why perhaps I keep having these really fruitless, frustrating fantasies. In a sense, it’s laziness. I have all this energy which I could be putting to some useful use—like writing, for instance—but that’s work and I’m afraid to try it. So I direct to this fantasy. Get into an argument that will take up a lot of time. Then you won’t be able to do anything else. Anger as camouflage.”

Fifty years later, I still have annoying fantasies that involve getting angry with someone about something, either which I have no control over, or some issue that might not even require me to become angry. I wish I’d realized how smart I was back then.

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SOL21: Calling the President

            Today I decided to call the White House to express my disappointment in the president. At first I was going to e-mail, but the e-mail form requires that I leave my phone number, and I don’t want to do that.

            The website shows two numbers, one for Comments, one for the Switchboard. I called the Comments number and got a recording that said I can only leave a comment between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday-Friday. This of course is ridiculous, since a recording can accept calls 24/7. So I called the Switchboard.

           I got a recording there as well, but a human voice answered in the middle of the recording, and when I started to leave my message (that it’s not helpful for the president, in response to a question about how he would reassure the American people, to say among other things “Who knows” and “Let’s see what happens”), she interrupted to say I should call the Comments number. As she was trying to give me that number, I interrupted, raising my voice because I was now getting quite angry, “I called that number and it’s only accepting comments during office hours, and that is ridiculous during a National Emergency.” And then I hung up.

            Usually, it's not good to get angry at switchboard operators; whatever the problem is, it’s not their fault. But this time? I hope they are getting lots and lots and lots of angry calls. And reporting that up the chain of command.

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 21 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOLTuesday: Washing Dishes

The last couple of years of Jack’s life, he washed the dishes. When he first came home from the hospital and rehab after his fall on the ice, he couldn’t do much of anything, and he hated that.

            We had always shared household work: in our early years, our practice was that one of us would cook and the other would wash the dishes. But after many years, when it became clear that Jack usually washed dishes as he cooked, while I used lots of bowls and utensils and pots, and didn’t wash as I went along, he rebelled. We then switched the plan to whoever cooked also washed dishes. And in our later years, Jack always wanted no dishes left in the sink in the evening, so if we had a late dessert, someone would have to wash those dishes.

            After he died, I was left with many conflicting feelings. I now had to cook and wash the dishes all the time, and in the first couple of years I would sometimes feel irrationally angry at Jack for leaving me to do all the work, all of the time. At the same time, I felt relieved that I didn’t have to wash whatever dish I put in the sink late in the evening, and often left one there just because I could. And when I went out in the evening, I often didn’t think about there being dishes in the sink that would have to be washed, sometime.

            Lately, I have started thinking about that. If I come home at 9:30, or 10, or 11, I don’t want to wash dishes then. I now plan to wash any dishes in the afternoon when I know I’ll be out later. Tonight, I went into the kitchen a few minutes before leaving and saw those dishes sitting there in the sink. I stopped and washed them, and it only took three minutes. I felt good. 

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