There are days when I really just want to scream. Go outside and just wail to the top of my lungs and not stop until I feel I’ve got everything out. Luckily for the neighbors I can usually control myself and not let my emotions get the best of me.
When I was little it was a different story. I had the worst temper as a child and would let almost anything upset me. My siblings even nicknamed me Madman and would purposely attempt to see how angry they could make me. They turned it into a game, instead of hide and seek they wanted to play Madman.
As I got older I learned to suppress the anger and keep it bottled up inside. It started to matter more that I didn’t upset others rather than being upset myself. As long as everyone else is happy I can deal with a bit of frustration. Now I am getting even older and things seem to be changing once again.
I’ve started letting my anger slip out a little. Not too much, but every so often I will say something and think I should have just kept that to myself, left things alone. Maybe the anger inside me has been building up for years all while looking for an escape route. Like a jailed inmate using a spoon to dig their way through the cell wall.
Maybe I’ve started my journey towards becoming a cranky old man! I’ve dealt with quite a few of those over the years and just been itching to get to my turn. People will just ignore me or say things like just look over him, he’s old and cranky. All the while I am just saying what I always wanted to.
What could be so wrong about speaking your mind anyway? Maybe I should just give it a try for a day. Start saying anything to anybody that pops in my head. Not worry about how it sounds, if it will upset somebody or not and just say it. Of course by the end of the day I will probably be looking for a new job and a different convenience store to stop at first thing in the morning! I might make the banned for life wall.
I guess for now I still need to control my emotions to the best of my abilities. There is plenty of time to be cranky and speak my mind in a few years. I’ll just fill in that little hole where my jailed up anger was trying to escape and keep going. But no one should be too surprised when a smart-ass comment or a bit of anger makes it’s way to the surface. They should just be glad I keep most of it locked up.
Okay, What if ? 
Very nice. I really like what you’ve written 🙂
Thank you and thanks for commenting.
The hardest thing I’ve had to learn is that my buried emotions never stayed buried for very long. They’d just crawl out of the grave like the undead.
Nerve pain and neurochemical imblances hasn’t helped that much. It took about 25 years to get proper treatment for the mood swings. Now I’m struggling with the nerve pain, and I AM A GROUCH.
I can easily be a grouch when I decide to let that side show but I am pretty good at hiding it. Not necessarily keeping it all bottled up but just keeping it covered. Sometimes it does crawl out though even when I am not expecting it. Some of those times even scare me a bit!
I know exactly what you mean. I found out years after I graduated that people used to taunt me in Junior High School on purpose, just to watch me erupt.
At least yours was classmates. Mine was my own family.
True! Possibly because they’re brothers, but my sister wasn’t a saint either.
wow guys, i really like your comments and that post.