Anger Management

When I am calm and tranquil, able to step outside the narrow realm of my own perspective and view myself and others somewhat objectively, I am fascinated with the study of this powerful emotion. Anger is such a fluid, versatile, and multi-faceted state of being. It can ebb and flow like a tide, or come crushing and terrible out of nowhere like an uncharted asteroid, fiery and disastrous. Then again sometimes it is slow and noisy, grumbling louder and louder until the breaking point like a summer storm.
"When I was a child...I thought as a child..." In childhood "angry" was almost like a bad word. I would only ever say I was "mad" and even that was a reluctant admission. As an adult, armed with my pink pamphlet's chapter on self-validation, I have no such inhibitions. I get angry, more easily than when I was a child even. But when I get angry, my mouth opens. I don't like to keep it inside, it's like hot gas expanding in an enclosed space - best to open things up before the explosion comes. Alone, amazingly colorful, sharp words and thoughts spring out of me, that I would have been shocked to hear anyone say fifteen years ago. But somehow they empower me, and take the pressure off the boiler, so to speak. After that, I still want to talk, but constructively about the problem, rather than just spitting out descriptive words that convey emotion without ideas. This confounds the Blue Pamphlet on soooo many levels. First, his number one instruction in that little manual of his is FIX IT. Whatever it is, whoever it is, FIX IT and move on. But Pinks don't like being fixed. We find fixing to be antagonistic and insulting. It implies we can't do it ourselves, and that someone else can do it better. It doesn't lend itself to the impression that genuine listening and validation is occurring in our interaction with Blue. Second problem, when FIXING fails, Blue Pamphlet's very next cardinal rule to follow is: SAY WHAT SHE WANTS TO HEAR. Maybe this works for some of you out there. If so, I congratulate you. Or pity you. I'm not sure which. But I can tell you this doesn't work for Blue and I, because we spent so much of our dating years talking, really truly talking, that we now see right through each other whenever we attempt any kind of half-assed smooth-over strategy instead of being genuine. So my poor Blue, who knows that telling me what I want to hear will never work, is left with nothing else to do but clam up and hope for the best. And despite all the terrific definitions and explanations in the Pink dictionary and the Chapter about "Teaching Guys How to Talk" I still can't seem to explain exactly what I'm looking for from him in those conversations. Some kind of mixture of listening, having an opinion, making suggestions but not overbearingly fixing the problem for me.... It's an ideal almost impossible to achieve. Then there's Blue's anger. He keeps that to himself better than his most private computer passwords, and for a geek that's saying something. Half the time I can't tell which of us he's ticked at, me or himself. Or both. Unfortunately it means most Pink and Blue arguments end either in silence until our moods improve or else we end up just laughing and agreeing that we just can't figure each other out on this one. Not very good for resolving the heart of the conflict, but at least we feel better sooner or later. And even though there are many things we can't seem to agree on, things we don't "get" about each other, I still think we know each other better than almost any other completely opposite beings could possibly know each other, and no matter how confused, we're pretty far ahead in the great game.