Letting go

I still have bursts of anger. They come without warning. I'm enjoying a cup of tea, reading a book (today, a hilarious tome debunking homeotherapy) and I just get this ball of churning anger inside me. I get angry so rarely that it's always a (disagreable) surprise when it occurs. I want to punch a wall. I want to smash windows. I want to punish people who get away with being horrible to others. As you can imagine, reading the newspaper is not advisable when I'm in this state.

I have several theories on why I get so angry. My hatred of confrontation makes me repress a lot of feelings. I suffer from depression and when I crawl out of it, anger is usually my first emotion, maybe because it's the opposite of depressive lethargy.

None of this really matters, except that I never know how to let go. I've tried breaking things, but this is only a very short-term solution. I've tried getting angry in front of people, but usually burst into tears, undermining the whole effect. I've tried writing long, psychotic letters or mails I don't send, but their baleful presence in my Draft box makes me feel terrible: small blobs of quivering irrationality, there, reminding me that I have lost my temper.

Running works sometimes. I also talk loudly to my imaginary target. This can get weird. I have no long term solution.

ANGER. I get so angry sometimes; I dream that I am a vigilante superhero and that I can find people and scare the stuffing out of them. Pf course, in these dreams I also ride a dinosaur to work. We're talking heavy realism, here.

If I ever get my hands on a decent superhero outfit, I may well do just that.

Special Snowflake

(The sign said originally "Road works closed to the public"-Chantier interdit au public- but some nihilist soul transformed it into "Happiness and opportunities denied to the public"-Chance interdite au public)


It's snowing here in Paris! It hasn't happened in years. In France we react to snow in a way that amuses my now American sister: "What, a couple of inches and you can't deal?"
No, we can't. As soon as the smallest flake arrives, salt trucks arrive. Accidents multiply. People complain. (Well, even more than usual). I'm sitting in the library, looking at the snow from the window. I love watching it. I remember when someone first told me that each snowflake is different. I didn't believe them. I went to look it up and then I tried to examine flakes under my father's big lense, but they always melted too fast.

In America, I learned the expression "Special Snowflake". At first I thought it was redundant, since every snowflake is special, then I realized it was an insult. I think it's a very poetic insult.

And the worse of it is I do think everyone is a Special Snowflake. I don't mean that anyone deserves special treatment, but that we are all different. We may behave in predictable patterns, but then so does snow. And to me snowflakes are so poignant in their sad descent, their perfection beyond my grasp or my lense. I know that many wonderful people cross my path too briefly for me to know just how special they are, and all the alternative lives I could live are as short-lived as a handful of snow.

So I'm reclaiming the expression. It sounds like an endearment to me.

"Come here, my Special Snowflake!"

Rant

Damn it.
I am so tired of judgemental people.

How do they find the energy? I find it difficult enough to walk around deciding what I want to do, without making to-do lists for every Jack and Sally I meet.

"You should..."
"If I were you..."

If these sentences have not been preceded by "What should I do?"or "Give me some advice, please, oh ye friend of great acument and perception", shove it, stranger. Oh, you say you mean well? Well that makes it dandy, then. I don't know you, you don't know me, so your opinions are entirely relevant to me.

Example:

In the subway. Morning. Grey faces, everyone is tired, someone is listening to their mobile really loudly, and French hip hop is...bad.

Random person: "You shouldn't carry around so many things, it's bad for your back."

....

Thanks? I have seen the light!

This rant includes: people who give unsollicitated advice to pregnant ladies. People who criticize homeless people because they are "lazy" in front of them.

And these are the same people who just sit there and don't move when someone gets physically assaulted because "it's not their business."

I need Alan Rickman to comfort me with his exquisite drawl.




Rant over.

The Great Escape

I pride myself on having great escapism skills. I can have a conversation and still be elsewhere, although I can't if the conversation is slightly more sophisticated than the weather. I can be in class and yet someplace else, also not recommended but sometimes essential. I like to think of it as a skill, and of myself on being a great escape artist, but these last few days I've been trying to live in the moment a bit more, and stop yearning for another time or another place.

I tried this successfully a few times: during one of those "in the supermarket queue" moments of awkwardness, where half conversations are born and killed, I was incredibly there and attentive. During a class on statistics, not the most rrrrriveting of subjects, I tried to be 100% focused. And while reading a book on Microeconomics, I concentrated on every word as if it were a sacred text.

I think this awareness technique is better for me when I'm stressed or depressed, because it eases the feeling of virtuality and loneliness that comes with unhappiness.

However, when a boring lady tried to draw me into her maze of shopping information in the bus this morning, I stared at her forehead, nodded at her, and remained firmly inside myself, happily escaped from the world. Sometimes it's best not to listen.