Rage I Guess

Hi there. It’s been two weeks and honestly, I haven’t felt the urge to write. I’ve felt the urge to scream and throw things. If I knew of a rage room situation where I could go or a kitchen demo project that I could take it all out on I probably would have done that by now. I don’t know what to do when the rage comes. I do know that the tools I use to cope with it, while by all measures outwardly healthy, don’t work all the time. The exercise reaches the point of muscle fatigue where I’m forced to rest. The rest becomes a little too quiet. The meditation lasts a few hours and the effects fade. The long walks need to be longer and longer to quiet the anger.

I’m mad at people. I’ve been mad at people before but never for this long and never for reasons that are so deeply outside of my control or depth. I can’t make people be less impatient about returning to “normal”. I can’t make people get a shot that will not only likely save them from dying, but will safe countless other people from dying. I can’t force people to wear masks around my children. I can’t scream in people’s faces the times when I am in public because they don’t have a mask on inside a crowded store. By definition, rage is a violent anger, it’s the feeling I have every time I see or hear or read about or see a picture of people behaving recklessly at best and callously at worst. Maybe you don’t feel it. Maybe it’s not my place to feel it. Maybe I’m being “too much.” I certainly don’t know what the right answer is. I do know that I trust scientists and doctors and people who spend their days immersed in topics that I have very little knowledge about. 

I went to the doctor yesterday for a yearly check up. It was the first time I was in a space with that many people for that long since March 2020. I knew I’d be nervous, but I also knew I was vaccinated and that the chances of me getting sick from the interaction were slim to none. My brain seemed like it had things locked down. My body chose to go into hyperdrive and screw with my sleep and make my legs ache at night like they do when I’m very anxious. Nonetheless, I went and felt a lot better once I was inside and settled in the waiting room. Then one by one, the waiting room filled up, still distanced and still technically requiring masks. Except it would seem that people just don’t care anymore so many women came in either with no mask and then would take it on and off while waiting or others would wear it under their noses which in addition to looking foolish to me, helps them in no measurable way.

Here’s where the rage comes into play. I wanted to scream, “hey, you’re indoors. At the very least follow the damn rules. Even if you don’t agree with them. I truly don’t care. Rules are rules. Deal with it.” Or “hey lady, you’re pregnant and you just told your other pregnant friend that your husband is vaccinated but you aren’t. Why aren’t you wearing a mask? Do you not care? Do you not believe that they work? What the world is it?” Or “ma’am, I heard you when you told the lady next to you that you were vaccinated and that you’ll still wear a mask indoors but in your words you just want to be free. You say you can’t breathe in a mask and yet medical professionals do it all damn day for years and they are just fine. What the hell?” I had nothing nice to say so I chose not to say anything because at the end of the day, I knew my words would have no affect but to anger or cause rage in these women, and because I am vaccinated so I had a measure of confidence that their lack of rule following wasn’t going to adversely affect me. But what do you do with the rage? Where does it go and should we even keep trying to quiet it? What’s the right answer?

There are things I want to do again. I want to go have brunch with friends indoors at a restaurant in the middle of winter when it’s too cold to eat outside. I want to go to the movie theater about once a month like I used to. I want to fly somewhere on a plane. I love flying so so much. I want my kids to be able to play with whatever children they want to. I don’t want to have to vet the vaccination status of parents and the activities of their children relative to my own. I want to trust people I haven’t known for years again at least well enough to let them hang with my kids for the afternoon. I am not someone who feels calm and contentment easily, but with the right combination of water, food, exercise, medicine, meditation, and sleep, I have all the joy and definition some level of contentment. But not now. Not when I see people acting like two shots in the harm is somehow a political matter. The rage comes and the rage hasn’t stopped. I don’t know when it will. I want it to. I want to trust people again. I want to believe that we humans fundamentally care about the safely and protection of each other. But right now I don’t so much feel that way. 

I am ridiculously fortunate. I have a safe, comfortable home full of all the things that normally provide me comfort. I have the most loving, caring family one could ever hope for. And when the rage hits, I revert back to my fifteen year old self who had the great fortune to have friends who just wanted to drive around and listen to loud music when the world got too bananas. Shout out to Katherine Swisher and the song “Break Stuff”. She’s the person that taught me that super loud angry music and a long car drive can do wonders. Right now, my kids see me with headphones in a lot more than usual while I metaphorically break things in a rage room. By no means a perfect or even right solution, but definitely one that does the trick in a pinch. My point being, I have methods every day to escape rage. A lot of people don’t. A lot of people don’t get the luxury to tune out when it’s all too much. A lot of people live in homes that don’t feel safe and have had rage enacted upon them at even higher and more horrific levels than before this past year.

I guess what I’m saying is, please stop announcing to the world that you want things back to normal. You don’t. You want things back to the way you had them before. Your normal is yours and yours alone. Please stop complaining about the ever changing recommendations about masks as if you never learned the scientific method and don’t understand that the more you test a hypothesis under new and different conditions, the different your conclusions will likely be. I hope we all reach a place where we can trust each other to be decent. To behave with kindness and respect at all times especially when it’s hard. To care just as much about everyone around us as we do about ourselves. If I’m all the way off base here, you just say the word because I for sure don’t have all the answers. And if you’re feeling the same rage right now, I’m gonna go ahead and suggest a really loud angry song alone in the car where no one can hear you. Even for like 5 minutes. Happy Wednesday.