Only with self-control. So far.

Here’s the (relatively) skinny of it : I feel like I am turning into my late father, Larry Donald Bertrand, in the worst possible way.

Namely, by becoming as impatient and irritable and downright cranky as him, It’s a process that has been going on for years now, and I am afraid it is inexorably and irretrievably linked with my recovery from depression.

Basically, the saner I get, the less repressed my emotions become (and vice versa, natch) and a large portion of those emotions have to do with repressed anger.

And as that anger comes to light, I am very reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I am, in fact, one grumpy motherfucker.

I base that on all the things I don’t say and how close I come to saying them,

Pretty much all the time I am on my feet and in motion with Joe or Julian, snappish and impatient comments are popping into my head and it really feels like the older I get, the closer those undesirable sentimentv come to escaping confinement.

Pain is the biggest factor, I think. That’s why this shit only happens when I am up and moving. If I am sitting comfortably in the living room or across the table at Denny’s with my friends, I am my usual charming and affable self.

And I have always figured that pain was the main reason old people are cranky. Chronic and/or constant pain can turn anyone into a raging misanthrope.

Dunno what my father’s excuse was, though. Having to put up with himself, I guess.

He was a pain, alright.

And along with the physical pain comes more psychological elements such as frustration at how complicated and irritating my disabled legs make things and the humiliation that comes with that.

Having to get around via walker attracts attention in a way my social anxiety does not like. At all.

Being able to go unnoticed is a big part of how I cope with my anxiety. But now everyone is paying attention to me.

It’s just good that I hardly ever go anywhere alone any more, so I usually have Joe and/or Julian with me to help me stay grounded.

Anyhow, back to my being cranky.

I feel like my road to redemption necessarily leads me closer to the heart of my madness, the very throbbing and incandescent nuclear meltdown at the core of my being that I have spent so much of my life and my time and my energy and my potential and my soul and my spirit keeping buried.

In fact, I feel like my life trajectory right now is best summed up thusly :

And that means risking becoming someone I don’t want to be, at least temporarily. All of my depression’s tricks have to be broken and denied, and that includes the biggest one, “but if you do that you’ll turn into an asshole!”.

So be it, then. I don’t want to go there but I can’t let the risk stop me any more.

Maybe deep down, I really AM an asshole,

Then my job is not to deny that, but to overcome it.

More after the break,

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More about Larry

I do miss my father now that he’s dead.

But it’s a hard thing for me to process because I hadn’t seen him in like 30 years when he died and that was not entirely an accident.

I spent my whole life with him firmly cast in the role of the villain. All us kids were scared of him because of his volatile temper.

This meant none of us ever really got close to him, and in hindsight, that seems tragic. He was very alone in our family, and yes, it was his own fault, but a part of me still wishes I had understood him then the way I understand him now and maybe been able to reach out to him more and find the good in him, and bring it out.

Too late now. I’m 50. He’s dead. Probably would not have worked anyhow because abusers gotta abuse. It’s an integral part of how they cope with life.

That is why they can never admit they were wrong. In order to keep the sweet release of anger from abusing people going, they have to be able to continuously cast themselves in the role of the righteously aggrieved victim no matter how absurd that in a house where everyone has to walk on eggshells around them in fear of their wrath.

Still, it wasn’t all bad. He and I actually got along quite well when it was just me and him. We would watch the news together and he would fall asleep and then I would creep over like a ninja to steal the remote but the moment I changed the channel he would wake up and say, “I was watching that!”. LOL.

That’s when I instituted my “if you snore, you’re asleep” policy. I just found it hilarious how he felt the need to defend his “territory” even when he wasn’t using it.

No, you see, it is vitally important that the thing I wanted to watch be playing while I sleep and totally ignore it!

But yeah it was not all bad between me and Dad. But it was pretty damn bad.

After all, I am the one who chased him from the dinner table with a blistering verbal counterattack to his goddamned tirades.

I suppose that is where I got my urge to teach the value of the protection of the rule of civilization to those who seem to think they are better off without them.

Now that I have proven that, when provoked, I am twenty times the predator that you are by thoroughly kicking your ass, would you like to revisit those social Darwinist statements about survival of the fittest you made earlier?

By such crude but necessary actions are the walls of civilization defended.

The short version : do not assume that a lack of rules means you win. Those rules protect you from me as much as they protect them from you.

Or as Rock and Hyde put it,

Brilliant album, by the way. I highly recommend it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.