Anger is an Edge

Today I just wanted to reflect on some current happenings in the life of Mark Turnipseed. The Addict. The Alcoholic. The Father. The Husband. The best friend of Anger.

I sat and watched as my newborn son awoke from one of his longest nights of sleep since his birth. Before his eyes opened his faced curled up with red like Pop-eye after two cans of spinach. He raised his arms above his head, curled his back and let out a high pitch squeal that quivered through his lips like balloon that slips out of the clowns hand and screams over the heads of toddlers at a birthday party. When his muscles relaxed enough to allow blood back into his cheeks and his eyes to open he looked at me with a glare of fury. He shut his eyes again and repeated the painful twist of awful awakening. He hates waking up.

After he had shown his mighty roar and realized no amount of straining was going to bring back his peaceful sleep he began to cry a deep, soulful and visceral cry that made my stomach turn and my spirit so uneasy that I became inclined to pick him up. Immediately, the war-cry turned into a coo and he drooled on me and smiled, teethless and content. His mighty anger was used to get exactly what he wanted.

As I reached my teenage years I found out that I could come off peaceful, loving and happy while keeping anger inside; sharp and ready to use. All I had to do was wear my hair shaggy, put on a tie-dye t-shirt, and hum Grateful Dead tunes while strolling down the awkward school hallways. I always wore a big green snowboarding jacket filled with pot. I smelled like peace and looked like it, but inside I was fuming.

Even though I tried to hide it, anger drove my decisions. I would skip math class because I was mad at the teacher or another student in the class. I would cause a scene in class because my teacher wanted me to do something I did not want to do. I once picked up a lunch table, flipped it over and hurled two chairs across the room because the lunch attendant made me sit at my own table. I learned later on that I was skipped in annual hazing because the older classes called me the “crazy white boy in the green jacket.” I guess my disguise was really only working for the man who was behind the mask. Everyone else knew his heart was filled with fire.

In the overall scheme I got exactly what I thought I wanted. My anger worked the same way it works for my newborn. Eventually, I pushed everyone so far away I no longer had to fear someone coming into my bubble. I feared intimacy so much that all I wanted was to be left alone. But, this place was awful.

This place ended up being a small house in Whitefish, Montana that had more empty beer bottles than books on the shelves, more syringes than soap and more pill bottles than flower vases. I didn't have lightbulbs in the lamps because I broke them and kept the shutters sealed off from light. The only light I used was the TV playing repeats of Widespread Panic Live while I strummed my mandolin and screamed out lyrics with my eyes closed until I passed out.

I didn’t only ride my addiction to the bitter end- I rode the edge of anger towards the thrones of insanity. I never grew up past my infantile cries for comfort. I continued to use anger as a tool to get everything I wanted. When anger didn’t work, I used alcohol and drugs. How many times have you seen that man at the end of the bar, gripping his mug like its a steering wheel in the Indy 500, but with eyes downcast and crooked as a sagging pumpkin? That was me.

This weekend I had that choice. A choice I didn’t believe I had before sobriety. I have been working as hard as I can to do everything I do with integrity and pride. Despite this, the day before my birthday I lost my job and my home. Telling my wife was hard, among the hardest things i’ve ever done, but saying I was sorry for holding bitterness towards my old boss was even harder.

I felt I deserved to be angry. I had just uprooted my family from a home, moved to a new town for a job with high promises that were stripped away quicker than a drop of water in a flower pot. I felt I could use my anger to prove and demonstrate justice. But deep down I knew where anger took me.

Triathlon has taught me a very strong lesson about sobriety. Triathlon is a long distance, time consuming and physically demanding sport that requires endurance. Likewise, sobriety is spiritually demanding, time consuming and requires great endurance. To accomplish such feats there has to be something more sustainable than anger and fear and self. It is a miracle to me I am sober today, likewise it’s a miracle each time I cross a finish line or complete a training session. So how?

There were many sports I played growing up where anger was used as an edge in competition. It was able to juice me up so much for quick bursts that I started varsity football as a freshman. But using anger as an edge is exhausting. It is not long after a burst that a crash comes and this is not an option in triathlon. The head must be clear of anger and fear. The mind must believe and have faith that it can make it on a new fuel. The only drive that can get me across the finish line is gratefulness and awe of the miracles and gifts in my life. This is no different from sobriety. When the going gets hard and the finish line seems forever away I just peer into my newborn’s eyes your feel my wife’s deep embrace and bask in thankfulness. All of a sudden the steps seem effortless.