Jennifer Plesko

Anger is an interesting thing. It can start with something that happened so long ago you can barely remember, but that’s all it takes - like a bitter seed planted into your soul. As a matter of self-preservation, you shove it down and try to move on. But it’s there, nagging, like a rock in your shoe, and it will begin to rear its ugly head when you least expect it.

Before you know it, a shy, well-behaved little girl becomes a bully. She lashes out at her best friend and pummels him to the ground. She teases kids that are smaller or more defenseless. She dismantles insects and worms.

By middle school, she begins to learn how to push the rage down as if she were stomping down the trash in a garbage can. But the kids at school call her fat. Her best friends betray her. The boys don’t like her. And then her grandmother goes to a nursing home and her grandfather comes to live with them, so mom and dad are distracted. They don’t pay her the attention she wants. She has to make them pay attention. There is depression. There are suicide threats. There is cutting.

Then her grandfather dies, and the guilt begins. More self-loathing. More anger. Until Junior High when she, the former bully, is now on the receiving end on a daily basis. She is ridiculed. She is gossiped about. She is betrayed over and over. One day she loses control of her anger when a boy in her History class calls her a name and she punches him in the face. Three days of In-School Suspension. The boys notice her now, but they sense her vulnerability and low self-esteem and take full advantage. At least they like me, she thinks.

By high school, she learns to suppress the rage more and more. After all, she is trying to control her boyfriend’s temper as well. It is a lot of work. He gets angry at her and she doesn’t know why. He puts her on a pedestal and then tells her she’s bad. He punches holes in things. He makes sure he has control over every move she makes. He even cheats on her and tells her that she should call the girl and thank her for talking him out of breaking up with her. And she does. And the anger continues to bubble below the surface.

By college, she has almost mastered the art of squelching her feelings. When someone dies, it barely fazes her. The dog who was her constant companion for the last 14 years is put to sleep and she feels nothing. She fails a test and it barely registers as a blip on the radar. A boy who she thought was her friend assaults her at a party, and she is numb.

Then she meets a boy and begins to feel things she didn’t know existed. There is excitement, romance, infatuation. His name appears in her inbox and her heart leaps. He knocks on her door and her stomach is in her throat. She has butterflies of anticipation every second they’re apart. Sometimes he gets jealous or mad, but that’s just because he loves her so much. One day this boy asks her to marry him and all her dreams come true. But soon he starts to withdraw and a cloud passes over his face. He pushes her further and further away. He says things that hurt her. He does things that destroy her. The helplessness she feels causes her rage to be almost unbearable sometimes. She wants to scream. She wants to break things. She wants to drive off a bridge to make the pain stop. But this is her husband to whom she made a lifelong commitment, so she just pushes it deep down, wipes away the tears, puts on a smile, and loves him with all her might. No matter what.

But it still isn’t enough. He decides to leave anyway. She is numb again. People die and she feigns sadness. People gossip about her and she couldn’t care less. People cry and she fakes sympathy. Boys are scared of her because she stares an icy hole right through them. At night as she tries to sleep, the anger claws at the inside of her brain feverishly trying to get out. Her thoughts so red and furious. This bitter seed has grown into a thick, thorny vine that has slowly twisted around her heart and it is choking the life out of her.

Finally, she pleads with God to take it away. She wants to feel peace instead of turmoil. Love instead of hate. And slowly, He begins to hack away the vine, little by little, piece by piece. And to think a lifetime of anger started with one little seed.