Learning to access my anger

Anger, as a reaction, has never come naturally to me. Melancholy and disappointment? They’re unfortunately my besties. Joy? Of course. Tears to this day come far more easily than quick anger, and those moments of rage I’ve had are few and easy to recollect. One of my earliest memories is being handed my comfort blanket fresh out of the dryer, and throwing a fit because I wanted it cool, cold-side-of-the-pillow style. I threw open the sliding door dramatically and threw it outside to cool down with a huff. Once, it was because my sister had eaten my takeout leftovers that I had been looking forward to eating after my high school lacrosse practice that evening. When I say the thought of those leftovers were pushing me through the drills that day, I am not exaggerating. I was livid. No one but the animals were home: I yelled and stomped all over the house, the dogs nervously yawning and wagging their tails with their ears pinned back. I felt a little better, but felt worse that I scared the dogs.

I didn’t bring any of this anger to my sister (who had years later gone on to infamously text me and two of our other sisters at 3am, “Can I add water to my roommate’s curry so it doesn’t look like I ate any?” The answer from all three of us was a resounding NO!), as I was more mad at the situation, that I was hating lacrosse so much that day the only thing keeping me going was food, and then when my deeply disordered thoughts around food were disappointed, I felt so much rage at myself for being so weak. I didn’t even bring it up to her, or anyone at the time. It was a me thing.

So what? Am I a coward about showing my true feelings in the moment? I have decided that no, I instead have always been a peacekeeper between my siblings, friends, roommates, classmates, coworkers, and more, paired with a deep need to be liked after having to make an entirely new group of friends when I went to middle school. This connection to the emotion anger had been dulled in favor of going along to get along. I was a people pleaser.

A very sweet Iranian store owner named Haji Najmabadi I was acquainted with a decade ago complimented me while helping make dinner at his home, “Sarahjane, you are so co-operative”, spoken like that, co, one word; operative, another. And I generally am! I like being helpful, and working in a team, the whole greater than the sum of its parts, Aristotle-style. My family is exceptionally cooperative, and if I can easily make someone’s life nicer and easier, why shouldn’t I be helpful? It’s why I have the patience to have worked in the customer service industry and own a retail store for so long. I do enjoy it, when folks aren’t being absolute hobgoblins. However, I have been managing customers’ emotions since I was twelve years old when I would sell tickets for rides and paddle-boats, giving accurate change without a digital register at the amusement park and concession stand my aunt owned in the middle of Liberty Park, in Salt Lake City. If anyone ever had a real disagreement with her business that was projected onto me, she would back me up.

What does this have to do with anger? Well, for one, it took me until my late twenties to actually be able to access my anger. “Co-operative” always sticking in my mind— Helping Haji at dinner, making a meal with my family, lending a hand to a coworker, of course I was happy to co-operate. But must I always? With everyone, all the time?

I am filled with incandescent fury when I think of the world’s myriad injustices, of course—that is not what I am meaning here. That kind of righteous anger has led me to protest, vote, donate, and do as much in my community as I can. I am quick to jump to a friend’s side, or defend my customers against someone seeking to harm them. In those moments it’s like a fiery spirit possesses me, blessing me with quick wit and an impressive glare—really, it’s what my family refers to as The Panther, the alter-ego of our fierce mother that has a voice to snap even the most unruly teen (or adult) to attention. All of my sisters and I can be possessed by The Panther at moments. No, I am talking about when in my daily personal life, I have conflict, The Panther is nowhere to be seen. I don’t believe I tend to run away from conflict, but I think being a diplomat for everyone else meant that it took me a while to learn to deal with my own conflicts and my own reactions, and honestly learn to stick up for myself, and not worry/care about what anyone thought. Being willing to rock the boat with not only strangers, but friends or family.

By no means am I implying I am less prone to conflict than the average person, it comes for us all. This would be the moments where rather than make someone else uncomfortable, I pushed it down and got through whatever it was until I could be alone and then let the full spectrum of emotions hit me. To shed the tears, feel the fury or embarrassment. I was "the bigger person”, as it were. I would say I had moved on, when the truth was I had said that to make someone feel better before I was really ready, myself. Unfortunately, this kind of feminine socialization, especially from church, a watered down “keep sweet” mentality that many American women have, still led me to being groomed as a young person as my boundaries were easily eroded. I dreaded the reaction to me bringing up hurt feelings more than the original hurt. It took me working on healing this inner teen of mine to reach this anger and act on it towards this individual who manipulated me so, and anyone that sought to undermine my self worth.

I remembered some anger I had at this guy just before I cut him out of my life and years after I had dumped him. As I became a young adult, I remained friendly with him, even as he still tried to weasel his way back into my life and into another relationship (even while we were both in other relationships, too), and he tried organizing a now-defunct group art blog. It was supposed to be for us and several of our friends to share what art we were working on. My rage for him was starting to simmer for the first time, as at about this time, I couldn’t post anything online, anywhere, without him commenting something snarky. He was relentless, making fun of my appearance, what I was doing, and critiquing my artwork harshly, when he himself had been eclipsed by my skills years before. Pressure built with every comment until, if I remember correctly, I posted some of my nude figure paintings from art school on the group art blog, and that loser took them down without asking me first. When I messaged him about it, he cited that it should be family friendly. Mind you, the images were unsexual in nature, just nude, and we had never discussed things we couldn’t post. I assumed as long as it wasn’t sexually explicit, it would be fine.

I was pissed. This is another moment of true anger I can remember. So pissed, I drew a hot girl smoking in her underwear on what I imagined to be a fire escape with her cat and posted it onto the blog saying “censorship sucks”, I guess. I was 21, still full of bad judgement, but certainly not so bad that I deemed pursuing a 16 year old at that age to be appropriate, like he had. I ended up blocking him finally shortly after this incident, unable to reconcile his behavior and continuing any kind of contact with him. In 2015, I still wasn’t ready to deal with it when I saw he had made an account and followed me on Instagram. I had a visceral reaction to his username and blocked him again, haunted.

I ended up getting the courage to confront him when his account was recommended to me on Twitter in 2021 because of mutual friends and followers. His new IG was full of images of him at the Women’s March, and I was disgusted. Did the woman he was with there know he had sexually abused a teen? That he’s the reason I say “Me, too”? I decided to follow him, curious. He followed me back.

I wrote him, after observing. He’s the kind of guy that made a highlight of every single one of his reposted IG Stories, week by week, like some kind of catalog of memes, obsessed with his own posting that requires no originality of his own. Words started flowing in the missive I was writing to him, but I sat on it for a bit, and asked for advice from my therapist and closest friends before I hit send and proceeded to block him entirely once again. I told him not to respond, and he did anyway. My friends and therapist read it first, before I opened it. His response was predictable; he couldn’t help himself. If he hadn’t responded, my respect for him may have ticked up a hair, but of course he wrote back some drivel about how it wasn’t all his fault, bringing up a dead friend for sympathy and blaming his ex, incapable of not having the last word. For all the good it did, as if I would deign him with a personal response. Finally being able to say what I had meant to say, adult to adult, felt incredible. Freeing. Like I erupted from a cocoon and was able to finally defend my younger self from him, and the self that exists now and in the future from other people that would seek to bring me and those I love low.

I’ve been with my husband for almost the entirety of my adult life. In a few years, it will have been half of my life that I have spent with him. We met young, and both of us were considerate youngest siblings of our families, generally known for getting along with everyone and thus getting along with each other near-perfectly. We had disagreements of course, but never fought. It took real life shenanigans happening to us and our families to learn to navigate conflict, together. We are still working on it, both imperfectly human, but always aiming to do better by the other. It has taken us both years of adjustment and therapy to open up about our emotions to one another. He would shut down when emotions rose, as that was the pattern he had grown up with. I would stew for days, letting it fester, resentment building. It wasn’t good for either of us. At the end of the day, we are on the same team. Not choosing to share relevant information about our feelings with each other is poison to the heart and to all relationships. I’m so grateful to have a husband that listens, that cares, and can show me his emotions in a healthy way, and can hold mine with tenderness, too.

Sometimes I still struggle with it, bringing my grievances to someone else after the fact. I know everyone is going through their own battles, but shoving down my feelings is I see now as the greatest betrayal of myself and the woman I have become and fought for. I have finally, finally learned that it is ok for myself to have delayed emotions, but I must be true to myself and speak up if I am feeling hurt, and that I have no obligation to stick around with anyone that lacks accountability, doesn’t listen, or is unable to uplift me in my own times of need.

In all honesty, I hope we are all able to cut ties with or stand up to those that make us feel less-than.

Well, I have a new playlist to listen to, if you like that sort of thing.

My friend Christina Cordova is featured in Target’s Latino Heritage month collection. Her work is beautiful and I am so proud of this alumni Bay-Made artist having such a wonderful win. I went out and bought the creamer set and tray, but wish I had space for everything.

In addition, I’ve read some more excellent books over the last month:

• Fairy Tale by Stephen King - I have been a Stephen King fan since my family would huddle together to watch his latest mini-series from the nineties, my family always enjoying media that was a little creepy, weird, and wholly original. Forever in my mind, Modest Mouse’s Lonesome Crowded West is the soundtrack to all things related to his series, The Dark Tower, which I binge-read the first four books while bedridden recovering from medical malpractice when I was fourteen. Perhaps because of my last newsletter, I particularly loved the Jungian influence on this book, an homage to archetypes and myths. While the book at its core is a classic Hero’s Journey, it’s more than that. I loved the cultural touchstones of storytelling and how stories he had been told or partook of influenced Charlie’s actions. In classic King fashion, there is terrifying imagery, dark humor, and hateable or lovable well-fleshed characters. It starts as a tale of a troubled young man helping an old man and his elderly dog, to a trip to a magical land that drifts into Lovecraftian horror while maintaining a deep sense of heart.

• My Murder by Katie Williams - Katie Williams has once again written a captivating near-future story. She examines what it would be like to be brought back to life via cloning from a murder, personality and long-term memories intact. She examines female friendship, postpartum depression, and if we are still ourselves if we are in a same-but-different body, a psychological Ship of Theseus, and what it would be like to put our own ending under a microscope, discovering perhaps more than we bargained for. Williams was an instructor of mine for a Science Fiction and Fantasy literature class at art school, and she is the coolest. So happy for her successes!

• The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher - This is a great YA novel, and I immediately recommended it to my nieces. I was originally turned off by the title, but now having read a bit more of Ursula Vernon’s work, I gave it a shot. It was a delight! I adore her stories of ordinary women and people in fantastic settings, similar to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where that is also his strength. This book was unquestionably weird, funny, and now I want to be a witch with a hedgehog familiar of my own that will guide me through treacherous paths, help me avoid marrying an evil sorcerer, and happily eat the slugs in my garden.

The Lean-To (private commission) - Made this for some dear family friends in memory of their oldest daughter who passed away tragically a few years ago. This piece in particular was holding me up in art block for years—I admired Jessica so much, and her death hit me hard. Perfectionism was holding me back from even starting for fear of it not being good enough. It’s finally done, and I’m so happy with how it turned out.

Here’s another oil painting. One day, I will get to the fabric store and get some more backdrop colors, I am tired of undyed muslin. This was actually the first piece I made in my studio, but I kept feeling like it needed something. So, for the first time ever, I used glazing techniques and added a little more depth and warmth to certain areas. Now I am much happier with it!

I realized I never shared this painting. A smoky neon sunrise at Coast Camp’s Limantour Beach while backpacking in Point Reyes in 2022. The whole day was tinged pink.

Well, here’s a first pass of the map of the continent that the story begins in, Meren, and a little about it. The shape of it is based off a piece of cork I found off of an oak tree by my old apartment off Lake Merritt, which ever since I collected it, I thought looked rather like a landmass. Things can still change of course if I find something that makes more sense, but I’m finding it helpful to have maps in place as I plan my outline.

The country of Meren exists on a large island continent the size of South America, though the Aradans, similar to the Himalayas, split the continent to the southeast. There are several small nations that share this continent with Meren, though the entire island is called Meren. The country itself is a theocratic monarchy loosely based on western European history and with a Catholic/Hindu inspired prevalence for raiment, ritual, temples, and holidays.

The capitol of Meren is Lumir, and is located upland from a large river delta that takes advantage of the massive Nannan tides for its imports and exports. A huge tidal floodplain exists around most of the continent, the only areas it not affecting are those places 30 feet over sea level.

The Mereni were not successful colonizing in its age of exploration, but fared better integrating (not for lack of trying originally, but found better luck in trade with the newly opened world than by trying to conquer) because the fellow magical might of indigenous populations didn’t lead to populations being decimated or enslaved by disease or technology. Systemic prejudice still exists, but it is more reflected in classism and faithism within Meren.

To the eastern side of the continent of Meren, separated by one of the great rivers, are two more small countries, while the island nation Helvick lies to the west separated by a sea channel. In the southern rain shadow of the Aradan Mountains is the vast Hinta Desert that is sparsely populated outside of the coastal oasis city-state Hinta, at least that the Mereni know of.

The small countries are known as Geldan and Bandan, once the same land called Aradan, named for the mountain range to the old country’s south. Geldan lies to the north, Bandan to the south.

xo Sarahjane