Riot Girl
I realized I was angry as I sat in a movie late last night.
It’s an odd thing to realize. I’ve become very good at knowing that I’m depressed. It’s easy to tell when I’m happy. It’s never a surprise that I’m sad or sleepy or anxious, but anger sneaks up on me. Every once I a while, I just realize that I’m angry.
Then comes the hard part of figuring out why I’m angry. I don’t think most people have this much of a problem with finding the source of anger, but lately, I just have a handful of little irritants that I can’t control that keep intruding on my life. It’s like pebbles in my shoe I can’t get out. They keep rubbing against me, poking and hurting and slowly driving me bonkers until I just want to throw my shoes in a ditch and forget about it.
I think the first thing I’m angry about is the fact that I allowed myself to deal with the USSU again. I really need to ban myself from participating in the political process, but it’s so alluring. I want to stir people up. I want to yell and carry on and complain and make people think about what’s going on around them. I am proud to have published a letter in the Sheaf. I am proud to have taken up a few minutes of USC with petty allegations towards petty people (and to have not even had to have done it in person). The problem is that even when I’m within my rights, and even when I’m improving the debate by the simple act of being heard, it eats away at me just enough to want to punch someone in the face. And that’s probably not a good place to be.
The other thing I’m angry about is that I keep having all the right conversations with all the wrong people. I’m tired of how my friendships are. I’m tired of church gossip. I’m tired of people including me in their mess, but not to the degree that I’m allowed to fix anything or really do anything but hurt on their behalf. I’m tired of talking of the elephants in other people’s rooms, but never the elephant in front of us. Did you know I can see your elephant? It’s right there. It’s been there for months and months, slowly devouring anything else we can talk about until we pretty much stop talking. It takes so much energy to talk around what is actually important that, we talk about nothing until we’re blue in the face.
I’m so tired I’m just plain angry. I wish people cared more about each other. I wish I cared more about the people I do care about. I wish I had the balls to just say what I think and mean it. I wish I had the balls to hear the truth and accept it. I wish we could just kill all the elephants in all the rooms and talk about what we think about, what we worry about, what we’re trying to change, what we’re trying to hide. I wish everyone could stop pretending to be perfect and we could all just decide that if we’re not, everyone else probably isn’t either, but that that isn’t an excuse to be worse than we could be.
It’s an odd thing to realize. I’ve become very good at knowing that I’m depressed. It’s easy to tell when I’m happy. It’s never a surprise that I’m sad or sleepy or anxious, but anger sneaks up on me. Every once I a while, I just realize that I’m angry.
Then comes the hard part of figuring out why I’m angry. I don’t think most people have this much of a problem with finding the source of anger, but lately, I just have a handful of little irritants that I can’t control that keep intruding on my life. It’s like pebbles in my shoe I can’t get out. They keep rubbing against me, poking and hurting and slowly driving me bonkers until I just want to throw my shoes in a ditch and forget about it.
I think the first thing I’m angry about is the fact that I allowed myself to deal with the USSU again. I really need to ban myself from participating in the political process, but it’s so alluring. I want to stir people up. I want to yell and carry on and complain and make people think about what’s going on around them. I am proud to have published a letter in the Sheaf. I am proud to have taken up a few minutes of USC with petty allegations towards petty people (and to have not even had to have done it in person). The problem is that even when I’m within my rights, and even when I’m improving the debate by the simple act of being heard, it eats away at me just enough to want to punch someone in the face. And that’s probably not a good place to be.
The other thing I’m angry about is that I keep having all the right conversations with all the wrong people. I’m tired of how my friendships are. I’m tired of church gossip. I’m tired of people including me in their mess, but not to the degree that I’m allowed to fix anything or really do anything but hurt on their behalf. I’m tired of talking of the elephants in other people’s rooms, but never the elephant in front of us. Did you know I can see your elephant? It’s right there. It’s been there for months and months, slowly devouring anything else we can talk about until we pretty much stop talking. It takes so much energy to talk around what is actually important that, we talk about nothing until we’re blue in the face.
I’m so tired I’m just plain angry. I wish people cared more about each other. I wish I cared more about the people I do care about. I wish I had the balls to just say what I think and mean it. I wish I had the balls to hear the truth and accept it. I wish we could just kill all the elephants in all the rooms and talk about what we think about, what we worry about, what we’re trying to change, what we’re trying to hide. I wish everyone could stop pretending to be perfect and we could all just decide that if we’re not, everyone else probably isn’t either, but that that isn’t an excuse to be worse than we could be.