ANGER MANAGEMENT

DAY 5 DECEMBER F.L.Y. FINALLY LOVING YOURSELF CHALLENGE 

So...my boy tried to kill me....

Here's what happened (Monk Fan) Some years ago me and my sister went to Atlanta and i took my girls and baby boy! It was a fun time had by all, my boy was beating the hell out his sister from his car seat the entire ride! Thinking about it now cracks me the heck up as i envision her curled up in a ball trying to remove herself, as much as she could from his tyranny! He was a little fighter, so glad the smacking the hell out of people for no apparent reason phase is over.  But anyhoo, i get the girls their own room as they were teenagers and hadn't been to Atlanta and wanted them to feel independent and grown up and free to roam about the country. And they did...right to the pool!

So neither one of my girls can swim, but for some reason they thought it was a good idea to go to the hotel pool and almost DROWN! When my daughter told me the tale of almost drowning, i said something so inexplicably uncaring that i swear i blacked out!  MY SISTER cleaned up whatever comment i made that i am sure she remembers because i didn't remember at the time nor do i remember today? But the point was I WAS AFRAID!!!!!! I was so afraid, and so vulnerable to that feeling it made me ANGRY AS HELL! I swear i had the notion in my mind that if she would have drowned i would have KILLED HER!

Now i know that makes absolutely no damn sense, hence the title of this blog "slightly neurotic" i may have been a little generous with the slightly part but the point is...i know i have a problem (blows out match!)

So fast forward 3 years later. I take the boy to the park on Monday to ride his bike while i walk around the reservoir, i am still having a heard time breathing so i am taking it easy, but a nice walk, while he rides his bike before i go to work gives me time to exercise and spend time with my boy. The park is right across the street from my home.  My cell phone was dead and my inhaler on the 3rd floor...i figured its just a walk, i am right across the street, what could go wrong?

Well, as we are circling the reservoir the boy determines he doesn't want to ride anymore but walk, so since i didn't want to be fooling around with his bike i encourage him to race a jogger passing by...THIS FOOL has other plans, he starts off racing the unsuspecting jogger then the man veers off to run to his car and this )@*#)(#*)@(()*&! child of mine keeps rolling....

i am yelling for him to stop, come back, i started running, and laughing as he is yelling back i won!!! i won!!! i cant stop this nervous laughter and my chest continues to betray me and constrict with every step, i cant breathe worth a DAMN! I AM getting ANGRY i am cussing this little boy out in my mind and i am swearing on everything that is holy in this world that i am gonna F)(@*)(*)_@ HIS  @)*#*)( UP when i get my hands on him.

The only thing that kept me going was the vision of me pulling his pants down in broad daylight and tearing his HIDE OFF! So as i hobble around the curve of the reservoir barely damn walking, and surprised no one tried to impale me thinking i was a damn zombie from the The Walking Dead because i am sure i am dragging one foot behind me at this point! Did i mention i have no INHALER!!!!!!!!!!! I see him with his arm over his eyes, trying to hide the fact that he is crying...still riding the damn bike until he runs right into the reservoir's brick wall.  

All of my anger dissipated because one he is a damn clown, who in the hell rides a bike covering their eyes???? And two, he was alive, and all the thoughts of a stranger grabbing him or him going off the side of reservoir and rolling right onto the Frickin Jones Falls Expressway disappeared!!!  

I started to shake, as i wasn't angry but SCARED to FRICKN DEATH i mean who was gonna tell his father, who was gonna get my obituary off of facebook to keep my no account sister from screwing it up? Who? Who?  because i would have surely died?!!!!!!!

But seeing that he was just as scared halted me.  He was not afraid to be afraid and me beating the living daylights out of him would only train him to be ANGRY as me, NO SIREE BOB wanna teach him its okay to be afraid and HONOR HIS FEELINGS HIS TRUE FEELINGS!

So i made him get off his bike and walk as i threatened we would never ride again ever in life!  Well it was the most somber trek home in the world as i still couldn't breathe i did not have my cell phone and we still had more than half the reservoir to walk...a frickin Nightmare!

I walked as slow as a turtle and he even slower, i made him get back on his bike and we had a teachable moment about what it means to turn around on his bike and come back to me as this fool was going in circles, turning around...in circles...dear God get the crack out of these neighborhoods and lead out of these homes! I had not taught him a few things he needed to know, i just assumed he knew because he is so DAMNED GROWN and how horrible would it have been for me to strike my child because i am afraid and he confused and afraid as well...How many times have i been on the receiving end of such "discipline?"

This whole Hell Day at Druid Hill Park, made me realize that i am so comfortable in anger that it shields every damn thing else! My daughter didn't make me angry she made me afraid, and because she is big ole thing and not 3 years old like my son her fear didn't register to me like his did, even though my reaction to him wasn't as bad as when she almost drowned...it wasn't the best reaction either, and had he been a teenager like she was and he made me afraid like this...we would have been Kung Fu Fighting up at the good Dru Hill!

SO, as i learn to Finally Love Myself thus getting to know the woman to love, i have to leave the angry bird behind.  Being tormented for the better part of my childhood for being a dark child, with a funny voice, the birthmark in the shape of Afrika on my face that has the NERVE to be even darker than my skin and the big ole gap in my tooth, now i know that may sound horrific to those who don't know me, but im quite beautiful, if only thinking your beautiful equated to self love HA!  Anyhoo, the torment has taken its toll on me.  During my formative years i had a frickn lot to be mad about, but i learned to hide the anger when i could behind self-deprecating jokes, just humor in general and being super smart.  By the time i was in middle school i was one funny, witty mother #)%%^%@ I had learned how to shut shyt down, and i talked so damn fast you didn't know if you were coming on going.

Its funny really because then, and even now, on the inside i always have a song playing, seriously, inside of my head is like a frickin musical! At any given time my personal soundtrack consists of birds chirping, squirrels gathering acorns and i feel pretty and witty gaaaaayyyy (no homo LOL) blaring, but, all my life people have called me mean, or evil? The Frack? I have snow white and frickin seven dwarfs rolling around in here? But it takes no time at all for them suckers to turn into Buffy the Vampire Slayer and start taking heads, because i started to believe the hype, and be exactly what others were comfortable with me being!

This is why knowing myself is so crucial, and liking myself, and improving upon the things that I believe should be better FINALLY LOVING YOURSELF!  

At some point in my life i think i was about 30, i really started to say pump the brakes...and TELL PEOPLE NO that's not who i am but who YOU say i am and i don't accept it, even if i was an azzhat on yesterday i am different today i am better today and you will not compartmentalize me and project onto me your inability to allow me to grow and be better! I know it gets confusing, im a bit mystified myself, but it is what it is :D

So, sorry Danisha, Mama was afraid, and should have reacted more appropriately, hopefully the rest you can work out in therapy and not inflict this neurosis onto your children teheheheehehehee! I have to stop these generational curses and it starts with me, because my mother reacts quite similarly to uncomfortable situations, if not with anger as she is not an angry bird (thats my dad) then with apathy!  It stops right now! 

I am growing, learning, moment by moment, Minute by minute (told you i always have song in my head) hour by hour, day by day consciously deciding to love myself! And with each passing moment it will become easier and just like breathing (without an inhaler!)

This is a road of self-love self-discovery and self-mastery. I think we could all do better if we learned to control ourselves and set a course for our own destiny instead of offering so many opinions and advice we simply do not follow personally. BE THE CHANGE WE SEEK!