And not a moment too soon...

I will go to counseling tomorrow morning for the first time in 2 months, and if anything has ever proved to me that I need to learn how to negotiate my emotions, it was the events of this evening. Recounting them would not only be embarrassing for me, but ultimately not helpful. Let's just say I was mean to someone, and my capacity for meanness is very great.

Then, later tonight I tried to have a serious conversation with my mother about her life. I found talking to her especially burdensome lately, and thought I would do something proactive by calling her on all her "stuff." She simply felt attacked. I told myself this is good, this is me being confrontational for the sake of progress, for the sake of my relationship with the woman who gave birth to me. She couldn't wait to get off the phone.

And in between these two catastrophes, I received another phone call from Gordon, again just to say hi, just to chat...

But the toxicity of my meanness from before tainted the experience a bit. I tried to be honest with him about it, to talk about it in a general way, but my own behavior prevented me from entering fully into the simple pleasure of hearing his voice, because I didn't feel that I deserved that gesture, that token that is the byproduct of our deepening friendship.

I am unfit for company, for love, for any activity that requires kindness. I feel so fatally flawed. And frightened of the bouts I have with my own rage.

Did you ever watch the dramatic series "The Incredible Hulk?" As a child I didn't grasp why David Banner had to leave every town he came to at the end of the episode. I thought simply that the "Hulk" only emerged when provoked, and even then he only harmed evil people who, left to their own devices, would harm others.

But I see now how anger destroys everything in its wake, is indiscriminant, tears a person apart from the inside out... makes you have to keep moving so things can stay whole.