Anger, honesty and scaring the cats

You ever get so angry that all you want to do is break something? Not just throw your phone angry, or slam a door angry, but something along the lines of take a baseball bat to a car angry. Where the only thing you can rationally think to do in that moment is feel the control of shattering something. Destroying something. Hearing the sound of something being irreparably damaged. SEEING something being irreparably damaged.

Yeah, me too. That's how I woke up this morning. What set me off? (besides another sleepless night and a head cold during a heatwave...and you know...cancer) The sound of my husband's shoes and the absence of coffee in my kitchen. I shit you not. Shoes and coffee. What was my completely rational response to standing in my kitchen and finding no coffee in the coffee bag? Spike a hand full of ice, obviously. Ice. A hand full of fucking ice. Why ice? Well, it's what I had in front of me. The glasses on the counter looked tempting of course, I'm sure it would have been very satisfying to spike one of those wine glasses in the parking lot out back, however, I had a flash of concern for having to clean it up (I'm sure my father-in-law/landlord will appreciate that I did not do this). And didn't want to hurt the cats. So, ice it was. A big hand full of ice. Right on my kitchen floor as hard as I could. The cats were properly scared back under the bed (sorry guys) and you know what? I didn't feel a damn bit better. In fact, I felt a whole lot worse.

Tomorrow, P and my mom and I are flying down to Houston for the last time before the big move to meet with my transplant team. It is absolutely clear to me that my freak out is a result of stress. That I am not coping. That this anger is not rational. It's not the way to deal with this situation and it's only going to make me more toxic to myself. Yep, I know this. Do any of those words help at all right now? NOPE. If I'm being honest, which I am trying harder to be here (blogging the truth is easier said than done), the truth is that knowing that I'm being irrational, knowing that this is not the right way to respond, having the tools through my yoga practice to deal with this in a better way, make this a whole lot fucking harder. It's like a pressure to respond correctly when in the moment I just want to break something and I don't care if it's right or wrong. That's probably why I felt worse after scaring the ever-loving shit out of Ike and Hope (eh, the cats). Does that change the fact that I did it? Nope. Will I wake up again and feel this another day? Of course. I'm telling myself that this is normal and that it will pass, but that I'm going to need to address this at some point. Yes, I have a lot of internal work to do, but for now, I'm going to back off of myself (and away from the ice tray) and sit in this anger for a little bit. Maybe it will help me recognize the good moments. Maybe it won't. Right now I don't care.

After my early-morning temper tantrum in my kitchen, I dragged my sorry ass out of the house, into the heat and off to yoga class. What was the theme in today's class? Breathing into the difficult moments, the difficult situations and focusing on responding not reacting. Hey universe, back off. I know. This class was one of the more emotionally difficult to get through in a long time. I put my head down, closed my eyes and dug in. It's hard to face the truth. To have the mirror held up. It's unpleasant but necessary. Maybe that's why I haven't been consistently (and meaningfully) blogging lately. It's a mirror. After class I did feel like I had wrung out some of my crap, a lot is still there, hanging out, but a bit was skimmed off the top.

About an hour ago, the universe reached out to me again. Twice in one day ain't bad, eh? So here's the deal: I hardly check my work e-mail at home. Why should I? Especially because it's July and I won't be working for the next year. Well, this afternoon, I felt a compulsion to check it. In my mailbox was one new message. This message was from the mother of a very special little girl, sweetly thanking me for a CD I sent home for her daughter to practice with, complimenting me on the winter music assembly and wishing me a nice spring. That kicker? That last bit about spring. Though the message was received in my inbox yesterday, it was composed and sent by this parent at the end of April. This message was floating around in the cyberverse for two and a half months and finally found me on a day when I desperately needed a boost. Hey universe, I take that back. Thank you:)

The next few days will bring a flurry of activity and news, I will post the details as the week goes on. Stay cool, East Coast!!