MCF Smash!

I am in a good mood.

I'm not sure why. Work isn't any easier and my life hasn't changed drastically, but the last few weeks or so I've been feeling great. As the temperatures rise so do my spirits. I've been going to beaches, and driving home past beaches every night. There hasn't been one workday that I haven't seen the sun setting over a placid body of water. Perhaps I'm finally getting over that weird fatigue/anxiety thing that plagued me from last July well into the Winter, especially while driving, and my strength and confidence have returned. Perhaps it's a freeness of spirit that comes with the absolute letting go of everything that I once considered crucial and important about my job. I think about other things at night, and I certainly don't check my e-mail at night or on days off anymore. There may be another seemingly trivial factor adding to my feeling of “restored youth”, and I'll explore that topic on Thursday. We're a complex bundle of electrochemical reactions, and sometimes there is no logical trigger for our sense of euphoria, or our rage.

I've always been the “nice guy” for as far back as I can remember. My seventh grade crush even wrote the painful words “I think you're really nice” in my yearbook, words that filled me with nerdy joy until my friends explained the complexities of the male-female relationship and how “nice” was actually a bad thing. Even before that, in elementary school, many teachers and even my principal placed the blame for how I was treated by bullies upon me. “If he'd just fight back or hit them once, they'd leave him alone.” I had a Catholic upbringing. I was always taught to “turn the other cheek”, and that the meek were blessed. Fighting didn't appeal to my nature anyway, and though my friends and I play-battled, imitating our favorite television shows, there was a certain ugliness when tempers flared and anger was real. In seventh grade one of my quieter friends, who wasn't really picked on that much, was tormented during a class. The “cool” guys kept kicking his chair, and sliding it around, every time the teacher wasn't looking. I'd never seen him lose his cool, but suddenly he was on his feet, his chair on the ground and, beet-red, he was shrieking in a cracking voice “STOP IT!! Just STOP IT!!!!” Of course they only laughed at this, and the teacher dismissed my livid friend. All his anger served to do was make him a bigger target.

I controlled myself; I was made fun of plenty already. Whether I opened my mouth, or just sat there with my big ears and corduroy pants, I was a target. As I got older, I did less and less to call attention to myself. Only once did I snap in Middle School, and that's when a kid stole my pencil and took off down the hall. If it was anyone other than the only guy who was shorter than me in my class, I probably wouldn't have taken off and tackled him. People cheered; I immediately felt guilty. Not only could I have hurt him but, like the incident with my friend, I too had now lost my temper and control of my actions.

I'm a nice guy, difficult to provoke. It takes a lot, and it's a side of me only those closest to me, those I feel secure won't leave when I get scary, suffer through. Many was the day I snapped at my parents for something insignificant and did something stupid. A few years ago I was rushing to get out the door to a parade. My dad, as always, was stressing about traffic and parking. My mom noticed I was wearing grey socks instead of black ones, but I didn't care. Dress socks were dress socks, and my pants would cover them. I gave her a terse “it's fine” as my dad continued to yell in from outside. Neither she nor (unfortunately) I could have predicted the irrational response her next words would elicit: “Fine. Look like a NERD; I'm not the one that will look stupid if there are any cute girls there.” Like Banner becoming the Hulk, I watched from a distance as a stranger choked out the words “DON'T. CALL ME. NERRRRDD!!!!” and put his fist clean through a sheet rock wall. I instantly realized I had done NOTHING but prove her right and, in a moment of anger, I had been an ass. Apart from our breakup, the closest my ex-girlfriend and I ever came to fighting was about a year in when she got frustrated that I never lost my temper, never got mad about anything. She thought anger=communication and the lack of was part of what divided her own parents. Communication is good, but there's no point looking for things to be angry about and most of the time, no good comes from it. The only “good” that came from my outburst toward my ma was my learning how to spackle that year.

My friends have only seen hints of my anger. I fear scaring them off, and I fear being made fun of. Just as only my parents see my dark side, so too are my closest buddies the only ones I've been comfortable enough to let loose around. The most notorious incident occurred on a college camping trip. The last night of our excursion one of our number was staying up all night to drive home early in the morning. I stayed up and kept him company, and caught the sunrise after he'd left. As my other pals began to rise, I made my way into the trailer we were renting, and decided to take a very short nap. So deep in sleep was I in my bunk, that I did not feel them slip my hand into a pot of hot water. When absolutely nothing happened, one grew impatient and, as was recounted to me later, took the pot and dumped it on my crotch in a fluid motion. To their dismay, there was still no reaction. I was OUT. Yet, deep in my slumber, as the hot water soaked into my clothes, I began to feel a warmth, and then a burning sensation. Suddenly, I snapped out of my slumber and leapt up in shock, hitting the ceiling and nearly landing on the floor. I was disoriented and sputtering as I got my bearings and tried to remember where I was, and figure out why I was wet. The laughter in the next room was a big clue, and I remember screaming at a room full of laughing friends.

Then came the moment where anger made it worse.

There was no conscious decision involved as my hand gripped my belt, whipped it off like an urban superhero, cracked it on a nearby couch and screamed: “I WANT SOME ANSWERS!!!!!” No one had ever seen me like this and years later some would confide in me that they thought they would die that day. All smiles faded except for the one guy who did it, the guy who was twice my size and had army training. He continued snickering while I shouted, “I KNOW IT WAS YOU!!!!” In those irrational moments in which I was looking even more the fool, I still didn't know the whole story or what precisely had happened. It wouldn't be until later when we could all look back and laugh about it, that the blanks would be filled in and I'd hear the precise sequence of events during the portion of the tale in which I was unconscious. The tale's become legendary, and is still told at parties. Had I reacted differently, the story may have faded with time.

I've mellowed over the years. I've gotten a lot better at controlling my temper, and my close friends and family have learned to recognize certain triggers. Once in a while when under stress and pushed far enough, I may still lash out. Reducing stress helps too. My parents didn't realize what a positive influence my girlfriend was until she spent two weeks visiting friends in England, and I was back to being grumpy and snapping at them until she returned. Every day I was short with them my mom would ask when she was coming back so her “nice son” would return. These days, regular exercise and excursions outdoors are a must for my sanity.

I like being a nice guy, but I don't ever want to be the guy on the news a neighbor describes as “He seemed like such a nice guy....”