Showdown at Fresh Pond

It was a great walk up until that point. Mow frolicked in the small stretch of wood bordering the golf course, nothing new, but when she boldly stood at its edge and looked my way, I knew it was on. She baited and I fell hook, line, and sinker calling, "Mow Mow, this way."

She glanced back, poised to blow me off. I readied. We looked like two gunslingers, facing off at high noon, that is if showdowns consisted of one gunslinger running headlong into an open field while the other shouts obscenities. My blood boiled, propelling me forward.

I swooped upon her and grabbed her up, anthropomorphizing her with talk about how mangy mutts don't disobey me. I catch myself, as always, on the edge of an abyss. The edge of my anger. She did what any pup would do. I try to remind myself that running full speed toward a dead fish sounds like the most fantastic thing ever to her. I let her go, along with my homicidal ideations, and breathe. I leash her and deescalate, finding it hard to do these days. Eventually, I drop the leash again. Before my end hits the ground, she bolts back to the rotting carcass a few hundred feet back. I blast past her, feeling a measure of sick satisfaction that I outran a ten month old puppy. Her eyes begged, please Dad, don't kill me. Again I caught myself before committing the deed. Mow would live another day and I would be forced to temper my rage.

My therapist constantly points out the fact that my anger is never commensurate with the circumstance. Dubbed male's disease, he reiterates that I am struggling with the pain I'm in by dumping my anger on convenient targets. He adds that anger is usually equal to how weak I feel, that males especially, combat feelings of weakness by spewing anger on the world.

But I continue to fail at reconciling with the fact that I am human, and as such, try to deny my own ambivalence. No one can be all one thing all the time, and every powerful emotion has an equally powerful opposite. The equation sounds so simple: to acknowledge that we are comprised of both a healthy and neurotic side means that great love gets countered by stifling rage. I love you, and hate you equally.

It has never been more apparent that this concept eludes me as when Rachel says things out of the blue like, "It's the paradox of being Bry," referring to a conversation she had with her brother, Austin.

"Meaning?" I ask.

"You can be so resistant to change, you fight it tooth and nail, yet I've never met anyone with such a tremendous capacity for it."

Mow is safe, for now, but ignorance hasn't proven blissful at all. It becomes more and more apparent that digging out of old habits is like digging out of prison one painful spoonful at a time. But I'm hopeful...

Editor's Note: No Mow's were harmed during the writing of this post.