D is for Don’t Need a Dang Reason

I went ahead and kept it clean in the title of this post because I know a lot of my Triberr peeps want to keep their Twitter feeds Safe For Work, which is something I keep thinking I ought to do, but then never actually do. Don’t let it be said I wasn’t thinking of your needs.

I am so considerate.

Ever since I quit smoking, I’ve been having anger management problems. A few months into my new, smoke-free life, it became obvious that my irritability and strong feelings of rage were not withdrawal symptoms, as I had previously thought, but part of the reason – nay, the whole reason – I was smoking in the first place. I used tobacco as an unhealthy means of coping with my anger, instead of implementing a healthy means of coping with my anger, such as, for example, not hanging around with a**holes.

I’ve stopped hanging out with a**holes as much as possible, which is harder than I would have thought. I’d like to not hang out with a**holes at all, period – I mean gee, anyone would – but it turns out that’s impossible. Society is just chock-full of a**holes. That should have been obvious from the outset, but, my friends, I was young and naïve, and bore a young, naïve person’s innocent faith in the inherent goodness of humanity.

Nevermore.

Since I blew it and spent too much time hanging around with a**holes and smoking to deal with their connerie as we say in French, I now have years and years worth of pent-up rage that I didn’t deal with at the time. It turns out that when you suppress your feelings, they don’t go away; they just get worse.

Oops.

You’d think that after fourteen-plus months of not smoking, I’d have developed some new coping skills. I have developed some new coping skills, sure, but I’m still the cross, fiery, ill-tempered, irate, offended, exasperated person I always was, and now I don’t even have a reason to go outside and get away from you for ten minutes every time you piss me off. There’s just no amount of intense cardio or guided meditation that can make up for that. Since I’m in one of my Don’t Give a Sh&t Years (that’s years divisible by six or nine, in case you’re wondering), it really just takes all I’ve got to keep from slapping the stupid right out of your face.

Most people keep their stupid here, in the nasal sinus cavities.

I can’t afford therapy, but I’ve got a whole bunch of books saved on my Amazon Wishlist. It’ll be knotty around here until I’ve finished reading them all, and probably also after that, because self-help books are full of it.

So, watch yourselves.