I have lived my whole life motivated by anger. The anger seemed to counteract the fear that was ever present and made me determined, strong. It felt like passion, fervor; it gave me direction. Without anger I lacked courage.
I've often wondered what put the anger there — the anger that was part of my mother's whole family. Their stories started sweetly and ended with red faces and pounding fists. "If she thinks for a minute that she is going to...she is badly mistaken!" "So I thought to myself, just go ahead and try it. You'll be sorry!" Mom used to say about Grandpa that he would get a look in his eye "like the devil himself."
Around others we were generally a calm and pleasant group, even cheerful and happy-go-lucky. When left to ourselves, however, we would begin to think, and those second thoughts suddenly took on suspicious, unfriendly tones. Our memories wound up totally opposite of the original experience — almost as if there were something within us transposing what actually happened. People were out to "get us" or take advantage of us; and you could expect nothing but the absolute worst from someone, that was for sure.
The oldest two, my mother and aunt, tell stories of how they had their dreams shattered by their mother's demands of them. The family had to be supported and, being the oldest, they were expected to do it.
Getting married and leaving the house was also a bit touchy. Losing those paychecks would have been disastrous, so Grandma did all she could to discourage and postpone the marriages. When they were finally unavoidable, she greeted them with comments designed to insure that guilt accompany any future happiness.
Grandma, I just don't know about you. You looked so sweet, but your children's stories are so bitter and vicious that I don't know what to believe. The poison in their systems...how did it get there? Was it in their blood from the start because their father was a man with "the devil in his eyes"? Were they transfused with something that came from deep within you, like envy? Or did blind obedience to the wrong things break their spirit — breed pessimism and deep resentment?
It was so difficult for me to comprehend the messages I got from Mom about my uncles and aunts. They will "kill me" when they find out I broke the glass on the coffee table or lost one of the earrings that was part of my halloween costume or burned spaghetti onto the bottom of Grandma's favorite pot. They will kill me. But they never did. They usually reacted with warmth and concern. These people loved me, and I knew it. Why was I being told my world was filled with cruel and harsh people? Was my mother's world filled with this sort of violence?
I think perhaps it was, because to take away one's dream is certainly to bring death to the heart of a person. Mom lost everything she wanted to life's circumstances until she finally determined that this was what life is: giving up, losing, regretting, resenting. She experienced disappointment after disappointment, blindly obeying until all that remained was resignation. Her way of living was too passive and sad for me to adopt, so I anxiously awaited the time I would have life in my own hands.
As I grew older, I discovered several methods of handling my needs. I could learn to live with them; ask; manipulate someone; or just take!
Most of my childhood I chose to live with my needs because asking, manipulating or taking brought too much guilt and concern for my poor widowed mother. Grandma was constantly reminding me how hard my mother's life was and making sure I didn't take advantage of her (the way she did, I suspect). According to Grandma, everything I did was burdensome and hurtful for Mom: wanting to go out with my friends on her birthday (New Year's Eve), having a friend over, doing things that would make her worry (which was anything that took me out of her sight). There would be no bicycle (I think because a bicycle meant going farther than the three squares of sidewalk that could be seen from the upstairs window). Yes, it seemed everything I wanted was a problem.
My mother was not being cruel, just afraid. Not wanting to be hurt and disappointed one more time, she just resigned herself and hung on tight to what she had.
The anger? No wonder! There was something magnificent inside my family trying to get out and search and find and become. But walls were put up, and written on them, in big bold letters, was the death sentence: "Honor thy Father and thy Mother!"