Angry All The Time...
Several years ago I heard the Tim McGraw song "Angry All The Time" and knee jerk, I started to cry. I don't know exactly why I felt what I felt. I had never been married and felt the emptimess that comes from losing the person you love without really losing them. Or had I? I thought, this is the pain of my parents, of most of my parents generation in America. Love is what exactly? What is marriage, committment, self, family, home, belonging? That is the displacement I feel. But why? I used to attribute it to my Mother. Why was she angry all the time? She had a family, imperfect, but a family that loved her, a life. As I age I understand to some extent the bitterness that comes from living in a world of opportunity and feeling like you have not taken it, that you have failed or missed your chance at...greatness, happiness, perfection, or something MORE than what you have. I have felt that pressure, the bitterness even at my age.
I had Casey over to my apartment for Christmas morning. He does not have family here. I had to work that evening. I want to be friends or acquaintences or something. For my present he made me 10 CD's outlining our relationship - start to finish. Long story short the CD entitled "My Fault/Leaving" has that song on it. When I broke up with him, I told him I was tired of being the angry woman. Trying to second guess myself and be a faithful loving girlfriend was difficult for me with him. So everytime I wondered or wanted to ask questions or felt uncomfortable or sad, I spoke up, I cried, I accused. I made him defend everything, explain everything, answer every question and in the end I felt like the angry bitch. It wasn't enough that he felt guilty and sorry, I had to point out every indiscretion, every wayward glance, every hurtful comment. So I couldn't anymore. And while I am still the angry girl because of that situation, I don't have to be angry girlfriend anymore. and I can work through the bitterness and be something else. So, the song, I like it. It gets me at the core of me, my fears, my childhood. And I thought to myself...am I my Mother? Am I that part of my Mother that yelled and raged and couldn't see the good in anything? no. I'm not. I won't be. But I do get that Mother. I know, if not why she felt that way, what it feels like and the guilt that comes with it...I think.
I had Casey over to my apartment for Christmas morning. He does not have family here. I had to work that evening. I want to be friends or acquaintences or something. For my present he made me 10 CD's outlining our relationship - start to finish. Long story short the CD entitled "My Fault/Leaving" has that song on it. When I broke up with him, I told him I was tired of being the angry woman. Trying to second guess myself and be a faithful loving girlfriend was difficult for me with him. So everytime I wondered or wanted to ask questions or felt uncomfortable or sad, I spoke up, I cried, I accused. I made him defend everything, explain everything, answer every question and in the end I felt like the angry bitch. It wasn't enough that he felt guilty and sorry, I had to point out every indiscretion, every wayward glance, every hurtful comment. So I couldn't anymore. And while I am still the angry girl because of that situation, I don't have to be angry girlfriend anymore. and I can work through the bitterness and be something else. So, the song, I like it. It gets me at the core of me, my fears, my childhood. And I thought to myself...am I my Mother? Am I that part of my Mother that yelled and raged and couldn't see the good in anything? no. I'm not. I won't be. But I do get that Mother. I know, if not why she felt that way, what it feels like and the guilt that comes with it...I think.
posted by Coco at 3:38 PM
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