When you stare into the abyss

When I was in kindergarten, six years old, a couple of girls in my class came crying to me saying that Brian tried to kiss them. Brian, poor misfit Brian, who never could quite make friends with ease. I was his only friend--or at least I was the only one who talked to him--but he made the girls cry and for some reason it was my job to deal with it. I found him on a swing in the playground and told him to stop. He said he wouldn't. Will you stop if I punch you in the nose?, I asked him. As it were, he forced my hand by attempting to kiss me.

All the inevitable consequences were the result: tears (his, not mine), my teacher calling in my big sister from the fourth grade, my parents' bemusement.

Three decades later almost, and my head is still a mess over how to deal with anger. Something happened to me recently, something bad. Something that broke the circuit breaker in my head that stops me from exploding into a conflagration of rage and disdain.

I just can't seem to deal with anybody's bullshit anymore. From small to big things, I seem to have lost the ability to know when I should just walk away from a fight. Let the other guy win. Take a couple of hits once in a while for the sake of keeping things civilized and on an even keel.

But then something tells me Don't back down. Show 'em you ain't some little girly girl scout selling cookies.

That really bad thing that happened to me, it made me grieve like I haven't grieved in a long, long time. Then after grief came anger. I got all Dark Phoenix, destroyer of worlds, and for the life of me I can't be mild-mannered Jean Grey again.

I think I have mostly gotten over the sheer sense of betrayal and utter WTFedness of the situation. But what got me through wasn't truth or beauty; it was darkness and fury. It was anger that showed me the way forward.

Well. The abyss stares back.

Location:Keplerova,Prague 5,Czech Republic