Anger Management

I can put on the happiest, friendliest face to people, but inside I'm frustrated, angry and upset. Tonight, as I set off to a couple social affairs, I am just going to practice patience and presence. There is no need to hide, or defend anything. I am perfectly whole and complete the way I am. The reality is that I have made little effort to see any of the people I will be seeing tonight. Perhaps it's the fear of juggling the nuances of social interactions but I have resorted to work and self-improvement. So what, yeah, I'll admit, I have said things that hurt people in the past. I just got bored with the niceties of conversation, or uncomfortable with the pressure I put on myself to be socially appropriate. It's so refreshing when you are around people who are accepting of wherever you're at, or whatever you say.

The ultimate fear for me is to be in a group of people, and have the entire group turn away from me. I was scuba diving for 4 days off the Great Barrier Reef off of Cairns, Australia in late 1992. We had a talent contest, and each person was to share something. I was big into Andrew Dice Clay at the time, who was, and still is known as a hard-nosed Brooklyn stand-up with an edge. The height of his act was in the late eighties.

It was well known in my high school that I had an Anti-American side to me, chastising anyone who loved the U.S.A., or even wore anything bearing the stars and stripes. This carried on for a few years. As I'm thinking of my special talent, one that had worked well with my buddies in high school, it donned on me that I could tell some jokes and use the Americans on the boat as fodder. It bombed. After that, I beat myself up so bad I stayed away from everyone, feeling foolish and embarrassed. It only made things worse. I just wanted to be a part of it; laughter had been my only way to keep a distance from people and still get a feeling that I was loved.

My alienation continued on our final exam dive when I left my partner on the surface alone. She was unable to sink as she was too buoyant, and all I could think of was that I would be left out of the exam. As our instructor Douglas began his roll call on the reef bottom, he looked up and saw I was alone, and immediately started dramatically moving his clenched hands with thumbs up, up, up. When we surfaced, he laid into me. "Never leave your partner alone. That is the most important part of diving!" He was furious, and I sat on the boat for 2 days to learn the lesson. The sting was so deep. I never understood that I had always had the attitude of letting people fend for themselves in certain cases. Sometimes I felt resentful that someone needed me, or relied on me, but I simply had spent so much time thinking only of myself, it was just a feeling that I needed to deal with if I truly wanted love in my life.