A Li'l Ragey

Some of my friends reading this post might also see me posting on Facebook or Twitter. And they might have noticed that I've gotten a little less flowery and a little more ragey on my socials. Rage is maybe my least favorite emotion. It eats me all up inside, loses me friends, and gets me the silent treatment from family, who are obliged to love me anyway (in the case of my rages, from a bemused distance). Nevertheless, I have given rage some reign recently. A little gallop in the wind, so to speak. An airing of grievances.

But I worry this rage could be unhealthy, so I'm trying to not feed it things like fear and negativity, gloom and doom. Because we know that stuff is only gonna grow wild, and it doesn't take much for it to sprout into a whole toxic garden of hellacious thorns.

Still, there is the current reality. It is what it is, and considering that reality, you know this rage isn't unfounded or misplaced. If you're reading this, it's quite possible you feel it with me. But when I try to put my finger on the exact cause or source of my own rage, what comes back is the lame phrase "oh....just.....all of it!" And by "it" I mean all the noise that comes in the whirlwind of living in honest-to-goodness pandemic times. The inane policies. The creepy conspiracy theories. The admonishments to do and be better humans. The face-palm-worthy stupidities of leadership. The limits on where I can go and whom I can see. The current efforts to undermine our electoral processes. The failures in protecting our essential workers. The pasta shortages. For real. Pasta shortages. I can't even.

Oh, and cancer. Especially the fact that clinical trials, on which so many late stage patients depend for treatment, are stalled because of the pandemic. Access to other treatments and surgeries have been delayed as well. That sucks too.

And the senseless, needless deaths.

People, I'm trying to turn my rage into good, to harness it as creative and productive energy. I'm trying to keep out of trouble and out of jail (it's nearly impossible to get good cancer treatment when you're a felon). But some days containing that rage, even to a speedy canter, is hard. When I express it, stomping around the house, shouting about the latest absurd headlines, bemoaning the fate of the country, it doesn't change anything. Except my foul mood. I do feel better after a good stomp. So go ahead, darlings, stomp and shout. Embrace your inner toddler for ten minutes, or ten days. It's fine. 

People who love me advise again and again...avoid the news, avoid the socials. They'll just make you upset.

I don't want to be that ostrich.

So I'm gonna ride this rage and hope it doesn't buck me off. And I'm gonna being fuckin' grateful I'm alive to feel it.