There are times when I enjoy being angry. The feeling is cathartic. Plus, I am often at my funniest, most dry and cynical, when I am angry. As someone who is generally not funny, I appreciate my own wit in the midst of a rant. Laughter and anger are amicable opponents.
What I never enjoy--unless it is accompanied by a suitable amount of pride-satisfying "i-told-you-so"--is disappointment. Hoping is hard. It makes one vulnerable, softens skin, weakens defenses. So disappointment hurts more.
But sometimes even disappointment has a sweet aftertaste. And sometimes anger leaves me feeling peaceful.
Talking to Kevin has always been one of my favorite things. He is funnier and more interesting than anyone else I know. But I didn't realize until this weekend (or perhaps I had known it but forgotten) how healing it is.
Last Saturday, work reached its ultimate low point, a hellish end to a hellish week. I had no patience with which to meet even small trials. When Kevin called to ask me for a walk, I took my anger out on him, and the stroll consisted of me venting frustrations and generally abusing the world. And Kevin listened, laughing at my more wry comments, pretending sympathy or calming me, as appropriate. By the end he had me laughing without any dark humor at all, just from genuine good will. We ended the evening sitting on my couch in half-light and talking quietly. I felt not just cheered but refreshed, serene. Just because he listened.
Then Wednesday, he didn't call when he said he would, and I couldn't help feeling disappointed. To get out my feelings I wrote a four-page stream of consciousness, expressing dissatisfaction at insecure plans and impatience to be married. In a surly mood, I made him read it, while I hid my cowardly eyes. And when he had finished taking a beating, meeting with patience my lack, he leaned back and said, "I'm not going anywhere." There are times, quite frequently, when I fall in love with him all over again. This was one of the best. Maybe the best, but I hate to make that assertion at so emotional a time. Of four pages of bilge, he found the important point: not why I was disappointed, not why I was irritated, but why I was afraid. And he addressed that fear. I heard him say it and I felt amazed that he had heard what I didn't even know I had said. He really gets me. I felt stupid with relief. He held me a while longer, while I made other confessions (he has a way of getting me to confide things I never thought to tell), and I kept thinking, he's perfect.
He asked me out for tonight and tomorrow with specific plans, as though proving he heard me. I appreciate his alacrity, but I feel I need to give him a reprieve from my strictures. And I have to apologize for criticizing him with such vehemence. Beneath his sarcastic exterior, he is quite sensitive. Besides, apologizing gives me a chance to talk to him, and that is my all-time favorite thing.
