Let’s talk more about unbridled rage and what I plan on doing about it. Nothing. The end.
Not really, of course. In yesterday’s post, I talked about how angry I am almost all the time right now. I like to use the Hulk’s infamous line, “That’s my secret, Cap. I’m always angry” with a wry smile like the Hulk because it’s true. I’m always lowkey angry about something or the other, but previously, on a scale of 1 to 10, it was a 1 or a 2. Now, it’s a 4 or 5 at all times, and that’s only because I’m suppressing it.
When I was younger, I kept a really tight rein on my anger. I was taught that my anger was simultaneously too much and unacceptable. Only my father was allowed to be angry and only my mother was allowed to be depressed. And, boy, was she deeply depressed. She used to cry and sob at me for hours about how much my father wsa hurting her by cheating on her. I don’t remember when she explicitly started saying the last part, but I knew it from a pretty young age.
Recently, I talked to my brother about it. We both had a defining moment when we realized that my father was brazenly having affairs with women from the Taiwanese church. Both of us were in our teens when it happened (he’s three years older).
For me, it was when he and my mother were with another Taiwanese couple playing tennis. A woman from the Taiwanese church called and asked to speak to him. I said he was playing tennis, and I would give him the message.
When my parents camehome, I gave my father the message. Unfortunately, I told him that I told the woman he was playing tennis. My father got made and scolded me for telling her that he and my mother had been playing with the other woman. I was so confused because why would that be a big deal, and my father gave me the inane reason that the other woman would feel bad about not being invited.
I mean, she’s a grown-ass adult. If she wanted to act like a thirteen-year old, then that’s on her. It was just an excuse, though. I realize a few decades later what the issue actually was–that the other woman was either an ex-mistress or a mistress-to-come of my father’s, and he did not want to upset her. I didn’t think of it because she’s not his usual type, but maybe he’d run out of candidates.
My brother’s example was when a woman called and asked to talk to my father. My brother didn’t say Taiwanese woman, but since that’s all my father liked, I just assumed. My brother told her our father wasn’t home. The woman asked who he was, and my brother said, “His son.” The woman gasped, “His son?!” and then hung up the phone.