I've been looking at a lot of my old posts and realized that I usually only posted when I was angry or felt like I had to prove a point.
So why haven't I posted in a while? I guess I'm learning not to be as angry as I used to be.
Some things just aren't worth fighting about anymore. Things like religion. Who cares? I mean, I care about MY religion, but who cares what anyone else thinks about what I believe? Do I really care that you don't agree with me? Even when we share the same belief, do I really care that my interpretation of our Bible is different from yours? Or that you don't like my interpretation? Why did it ever matter to me that you didn't like my supporting the legality of same-sex marriage or abortion? Why did I ever let that make me angry? Did it change your mind? Did you change my mind? No. So much wasted energy.
And to be honest, I have been too angry for too long. And the problem, for me, isn't the fact that I got angry about things - some things you should get angry about, like school shootings and child molesters - it was that I let the anger CONTROL me rather than me controlling it. I would let it overwhelm me and consume me and lead to an explosion most times.
I have never ever been violent to my wife or kids. Once or twice I let lose a slap, and I regret it greatly, but for the most part my anger was never violent toward people. That's not a brag, that's... well I don't know what it is because many times I feared that it would go to that place. Many windows, doors, walls, and other things however were not so lucky, neither were my hands.
But by far the victim most often of my rage was the internet. Some friends, but more often random strangers. I had to prove to everyone that my idea was right and their's was wrong, even if I was the one that was, in fact, wrong. On and on I'd rant and rave. Sometimes in this blog, but more often, facebook or twitter.
Man I was ugly.
But I've been working on it.
Not to get all religiousy, but I am a religious person, Our church started a great program called Celebrate Recovery. I won't bore you with all the ins and outs of it, you can look it up. But it's a 12 step program like AA and others. Unlike AA, however, the program is flexible enough to reach out to people that struggle with all kinds of things and not just booze or drugs. In my case, anger control.
And it works. I'm learning to get a grip.
So you'll forgive me not sharing my angry rants as much as I used to. I'd really like to get back to writing for the sake of writing and not just angry ranting.
Maybe now that the fog is lifting I'll be able to think more clearly and actually write something creative.
