Writing My Rage Out
Why I love blogging and why I can’t quit
Words are fucking awesome when I’m absolutely pissed. They slobber out of my mouth and spatter on the page. They’re angry, vivid, and violent. They rip, tear, diminish, destroy, decimate, and dematerialize the object of my anger.
Spirituality and self-reflection be damned; I’m here to commit unspeakable imaginary acts of brutality on the disturbers of my peace with Cheeto-dusted thumbs.
Every keystroke is a finger that gouges into their smug eyes. Each period is a nail hammered into their palms. Every five-letter word is a fist in their gut.
God, I love writing when I’m angry.
I wish I could throw a fridge magnet at your head and see if it sticks.
Writing and reading have been a big part of my life. I started off at 5 years old with scrawled annotations on my copy of the children’s abridged version of Black Beauty. I loved horses. I loved the horses in that book. I wanted to protect them from cruel slave-drivers, burning stables, and draughty barns.
I wanted to write myself into their story.
But no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t change the story. At least not THE story. So I daydreamed constantly and jotted down those dreams as a comforting alternate narrative.
That skill for dreaming up shit carried over into first and second place wins at school debates and speech contests. My parents were proud of me. My teachers were proud of me. Little did they know that my writing was fueled by the relentless bullying I experienced in class for being chubby and wearing glasses.
Chewing rocks hurts less than arguing with you.
Today, I hold a full-time job in marketing. Seems like a natural progression for someone who’s good with words, right? Well, the truth of the matter is that I stumbled into this job after a year off work following a mental breakdown at my previous job.
My life revolves around getting the right message across to the right audience in the easiest way possible. My skills should be a natural fit for this role. They are. But it’s the people around me and above me that make every day a gruelling slog.
See, I like people. I like their experiences and perspectives. I admire their talent. But I absolutely detest them in that roiling cauldron of sewage that we call the modern office.
In the office, my creativity is stifled, filed off, neatly packed into a little box. I’m asked to keep it short, keep it professional, keep it relevant, keep it reverent.
The job description asked for creativity and ownership. But the former is frowned upon, and the latter is seldom given.
So my words and dreams are forced to stay locked up in my anxious little noggin .
Every “campaign” is just a committee of bobble-heads who want things to be said the same way they’ve said it forever. Every “plan” is someone wanting two weeks’ work in three days.
So here I am, writing for myself. Writing so that the words that well inside my head don’t blow out the top. Writing so that the silent scream sucking out the bottom of my gut doesn’t swallow me from the inside out. Writing so that I feel some semblance of agency and power over the assholes, even if it’s just momentarily on a monitor.
How I wish you’re reborn as a canary in a coal mine.
Does this help me? For some time, yes.
Is it healthy? Probably not.
Is it less expensive and more accessible than therapy? Fuck, yeah.
I don’t think I’ve experienced the level of catharsis that screaming into the void gives me in all twenty sessions with my therapist this year. I’m not decrying therapy, but I don’t fully buy into the idea that talking for an hour does anything to change your personality or circumstances. Therapists may work towards long-term change, but they don’t do shit when I have to navigate my everyday frustrations without bawling or balling up.
If therapy’s a rescue boat, writing’s a life jacket.
I fucking love feeling like a gladiator in an empty Colosseum. Nobody has any expectations of me here. Nobody can set deadlines. Nobody can give me a bad job review or pass judgment on me from above. Clap for me, don’t clap for me, I don’t care.
It doesn’t matter if I post every day or every other year. This space is MINE. And it’s the only thing nobody, not even the assholes, can take away from me.
Peace.
