The Good, Bad and Ugly

Here's humanity at its best, at its worst, and at its craziest.

The Good and Crazy: This is sharecropper and humbug who were married on her birthday a couple of weeks ago. Local friends were invited for a party that became a wedding. The food was good, the company laughed a lot, dress was casual, and we all had a lot of fun.

Humbug and I met 53 years ago in Bermuda. When my Dad was transferred two years later, his father (who shared the building with the post office) destroyed all correspondence between the two of us. Each thought the other had deserted.

When his wife died early this year after a long illness, he began searching for me to apologize (His brother told him what father had done.). I was looking for someone who deserved an apology for me. We were both looking on MyLife. I saw a tab that said, "Who's looking for you", and laughingly clicked on it. His name was at the top. I quickly switched to FaceBook and checked out his profile. Everything fit, and he had left a message for me. So, I wrote him. And, he wrote back.

 

 The Ugly: I was still in a relationship at this time. We had been in couples counseling for two years - doing better, then falling backwards, sometimes farther back than we had been. I was two steps ahead of the counselor who was two steps ahead of my partner. I knew the relationship was over and had planned how I might be able to leave (alone, I am a bag lady), but I had done nothing. After I began emailing with humbug, I asked for a separation. Then I met humbug halfway between our homes.

The Crazy: When we met, we looked at each other for a few moments, he opened his arms, I stepped into them and laid my head on his chest, and I felt as if I had come home. I had kept all his drawings, his notes, the diary, his photos. He had kept me in his heart.

The Ugly again: I went home and told my partner that our relationship was over and asked her to release me from my vows. She did. I began to pack. I asked humbug to come and help me. He did. 

Long story shortened. In less than three months, I was out of one relationship and into another. Moved...well, almost all of it. Shifted my bisexual orientation from female to male. Asked for part of the joint properties that my partner and I had owned, been granted some of what I asked for in money and all of what I asked for in "stuff". My partner was stunned, shocked, embittered, grieved, angry and all of those things you would expect...and with reason. As I said before, I was at least four steps ahead of her in ending the relationship anyway. I regret that I could not have taken it slower and been more kindly.

Now, I live in a retirement community in a state I said I would never live in again, married to a man I never expected to see again, and I am happy. For now, the empty holes in me that I tried to fill with things and spending seem to be gone.

Anger masquerades

Anger can be destructive or can be the greatest inspiration for a solving a problem. For people with latent anger, the outbreaks are often inflicted on other people - those they love, the old lady crossing the street (unless she hits the front of your car and inflates your airbag), your pets, yourself. But, most often latent anger masquerades as other emotions.

When I am angry at myself, sometimes my anger bursts out in a shopping spree or in fierce activity. Both relieve the stress. At other times, my anger eats itself into oblivion. When I get tired of being angry, I just don't care anymore. Whatever happens, happens. If whatever depends on my action, then whatever doesn't happen. Whatever.

At a masked ball, anger can be jovial cutting remarks, sexy flirting, silence, wall-flowering, drinking, dancing every dance until you drop, cutting in on a couple that seem very happy, envy, lying - almost any emotion it wants to be. Anger uses many disguises. Depression is only one of them.

Someone said that anger is fear; yes, that's one of anger's faces, but, again, not the only one. Fear of loss of possessions, spouse, prestige, whatever you value. Fear and anger are closely related.

Anger, fear and freedom are also related. As Janis Joplin sang, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." When you feel there is nothing left to lose, when you have that freedom, then fear and anger lose their meaning. Numbness creeps into the folds where emotions once lived. You have chosen to die - however slowly that death may be; you are not living - for, if you live, you have anger and you have fear and you have hope.

Also true is that another person's anger can drain your emotions if you let it. Then you are not living either. In these last days of Lent, the image of taking up your cross is appropriate; you must take up your anger and fear and ride it out, work it out, carry it forward to resolution.

I don't know where my angers and my fears lie, but I do know that I no longer care. The motions are here; the words are here; but the life is not. So on this Palm Sunday as many church congregations read the Passion story of Jesus triumphant entry into Jerusalem followed by his betrayal, suffering and death, I resolve to find my cross (my emotions - all of them) and bear it with as much courage and serenity as possible. Now, all I have to do is find this cross - the masquerader.