…while suppressing that inner volcano of mine.  Despite being a relatively overall positive and happy person, I have a bad temper.  I just rarely show it.  Sometimes I get so goddamn mad I can’t see straight.  I rage within.  Perhaps this is the Taurus in me…perhaps it’s just DNA.  Sometimes it scares me.

It started on Friday.  I got some news that deeply upset me, that popped out the last hole in my patience punch card.  I’m done.  I’ve had a home improvement project underway here in the townhouse since early February.   It was supposed to be done in June.  It was supposed to be done mostly with the help of a good friend of mine who put the whole plan together.  Money changed hands as part of this deal…which is still barely a third of the way complete and that’s being generous.  Hard to put a fraction label on it.  All I know is I’ve been living amongst various forms of shifting clutter and it’s extra noise in my life I don’t need.

The bad news was time, or lack thereof rather.  Yet another schedule hiccup which means no work on the home project this weekend.  [We’d planned to do the work just a few days prior.]  I sat at my desk at work that Friday morning when the bad news text popped up.  And I about dropped my phone.  Unbelievable.  My response?  Silence.  I was so furious I was afraid what I might say in response if I picked up the phone or texted a reply. 

This is why I sometimes hate texting.  I can’t tell if there’s any inkling of apology, compassion or accountability behind the words that we couldn’t work on the project this weekend.  And I feel like my generous spirit, kindness and understanding have been partially ripped out of my body, stomped on and made a mockery of.  Taken advantage of. THAT’S what triggered my rage.

I seethed and fumed the rest of the day, both pissed off and feeling ashamed of myself too.  This is a First World problem for sure.  Nobody’s dying and nobody’s house burned to the ground.  When I get this way I don’t always know how to handle it.  Do I let my anger eat up my insides?  Do I send a nastygram text back to him? Do I make everyone else’s day miserable and lash out?  Do I go punch something?  Cry?  Let myself get dragged down in an ugly spiral, remembering all the other times the men in my life have let me down?  Oh boy, we’re teetering on a slippery slope with that last sentence I know.  I’ll try to reel it back a little in here.

I got home feeling like a deflated balloon.  Yeah, I cried a little through my dinner.  I even tried watching Rock of Ages as it had just come out in movies on demand on TV.  And I couldn’t get into it, despite a kickass soundtrack that hits right smack in my generation…those of us who literally came of age in the 1980s.  Side note:  know what bothered me about this movie?  It’s a MUSICAL!  And – surprise – as much as I love all kinds of music and singing, I just can’t get into musicals.  The way that people spontaneously burst into song and choreography just bugs me.  Chalk that up to a personality quirk I guess.  Same reason I can’t stand karaoke and don’t watch American Idol or X-Factor.

I woke up angry on Saturday morning.  I tried thumbing through a couple of cookbooks to get inspired to try a new recipe.  I even made a lime vinaigrette on a random whim to get my creative juices warmed up; it’s a part of a crab and avocado salad recipe.  Nothing. I looked outside at the wonderment of early fall.  The season dial clicked HARD these past few days, and any ounce of late summer is long gone.  I went to two grocery stores and aimlessly wandered the aisles, trying to mentally savor everything and find something to inspire me.  I came home with a small bag of organic rainbow quinoa, some olives, a tomato, shallots, a couple heads of garlic and some goat cheese.

Even dinner last night was a bust.  I tried making chicken breasts with a garlic and goat cheese sauce.  Perhaps the actual highlight of my weekend was roasting two heads of garlic in my oven for a couple of hours.  LOVE that aroma!  But the recipe was bland and unfulfilling, even with the roasted garlic.  Even sprinkling on a few capers for some color and kick didn’t work.  Bland and unfulfilling…I think that’s how I’ve been feeling this entire weekend actually.  A little wounded, shut down and not open to savoring things around me. 

So I know myself well enough that this dip in my mood is temporary.  I know the balance between negating it and wallowing in it.  There IS a happy medium.  This time it’s a full weekend. I have a plan on how to deal with this perpetual postponing of my home project and I just need to put it in motion. 

I’m a little scared.  Someone went out on a limb to offer to help me and in turn I’d help him.  After some negotiation I agreed and did my part.  Perhaps I was naive thinking that someone would actually finish what they start, or if they couldn’t they would call that out and suggest another way to help – not just leave me hanging.  Perhaps I should have negotiated more strongly, like a business transaction.  Perhaps I was stupid to think oh, he’s a friend, he’ll make good on it in the timeframe he proposed.  Which has extended out months…which I’ve been gracious and understanding about.

No more.