Last night in Sangha, one of our members was pretty upset about something she had done during the week. None of us was there at the time, so none of us knew what it was. She said there were other members of Sangha that she had hurt directly, but they—whoever they were—apparently chose not to show up last night. But she explained about other times that her anger and frustration had gotten away from her recently, and said that she was genuinely frightened of the possibility of becoming an angry, bitter, helpless old lady.
So we all talked about anger for a while. I volunteered that yes, having anger sneak up on you can be very frightening, and I talked about how I struggled with anger when I was younger. When I was a teenager and before—but even into my twenties—I would get angry with no warning, even to me. I wouldn't see it coming and then POW! Then the anger would dissipate just as fast, and I'd be left with the shame of the mess I'd made. That happened a lot, particularly (... oh for example ...) in the early years of my marriage to Wife, and it didn't get us off to a good start. (See here for some discussion of the lasting damage.)Even into my thirties, I remember struggling with anger. I remember one evening in particular when I was musing on the Seven Deadly Sins (I must have been drinking) and I realized that the one I had the most trouble with was Anger. Many of the others (I told myself) I could take or leave; but even thinking about Anger sparked a resonant chord down deep in my viscera somewhere.
I assume that must have been in my thirties. That's also the decade when the boys were born. Son 1 was born when I was 35, and Son 2 when I was almost 37. And when the boys were little, they coined a couple of phrases that wrenched my heart, but that they used as superlative expressions of (respectively) sadness or anger: "as sad as Mommy," and "as mad as Daddy." It was awful to hear. (I realize I have already told that story here and here. Sorry for the repetition.)
