I don't really 'do angry' very well. I don't enjoy other people's anger, even at a distance, and I rarely express my own anger. I might snipe a bit, or drop in the odd sarcastic comment, or possibly slam a door - but nothing even mildly confrontational.
That might seem great - top marks for emotional management, well done girl!- but when you get to the age of 48 there a lots of things that start to make you really mad. The frustration builds to an all time high: you get angry about losing your looks, angry about putting on weight and it being harder to shift, angry about grey hair and wrinkles, angry about being ignored especially when there are younger women around, angry about all the things your mother told you not to do which might have actually been GOOD FUN, angry about the great things you'd hoped to achieve that never happened, all the young lithe men you could have had unusual and adventurous sex with but didn't...Add this to the accumulated angst and frustration of all the times since the age of 4 when you've had to be 'nice' to impossibly boring, rude or ignorant relatives and friends of the family (a restricted practice that you've un-wittingly carried into adult life ) - and this means that your blood is at boiling point most of the time.
For someone who doesn't "do anger", expressing all this is a very Big Job. The danger, if it's all held in, is that it turns to depression - and I can feel that depression calling to me sometimes like a siren. I fear it. There is grief and loss too in mid life with relatives and friends dying and children leaving home. It's a confusing time and you can lose your bearings in the emotional fog.
I was saved from this trap, however, by an incident with an old mate of mine. Jenny is a feisty woman; short, large breasted, blonde, sharp, entrepreneurial, influential in the town. She's impressive all right. I've known her for 10 years, and for 6 of those years we'd been on frippery European city-breaks together with two other women, shopping and laughing and chatting. We were close, and she was lively and entertaining - and acerbically funny.
Jenny had the same difficulty as me - she got angry - but she couldn't express it properly. She would get very very angry about something, send you a text about it, and then refuse to pick up the phone to discuss it. Then that would make me angry. There was something about Jenny that represented my biggest challenge yet; I was frightened of her and I was angry with her. Call me a wimp, but I knew if I confronted her about her texting habit, she'd cut me off. She'd be so angry, she wouldn't be able to speak to me again.
The day came when she sent me one angry text too many. She complained in an unjustified and pretty nasty way about something my daughter had done. I phoned her. She refused to pick up. She left me seething for days - brooding over a veiled threat that she'd made in her text. I insisted on a meeting and told her to stop this - explained how I felt. I had to prepare very carefully, and I knew this would be really difficult for me, and shocking for her. Now, 6 months later, she still walks past me in the street, refusing to speak.
As for me, I am glad of it. I found a way to express my anger with out losing my composure. I have lost a friend in the process, which was sad, but I'm over that bit. Since then I have sort of recoiled from town life - I feel I am gathering strength for a rematch of some sort. Maybe something less angry.
