Anger

Anger burst into my office this afternoon.

I working on a job submission, so I ignored him, hoping he’d take the hint and go away. Not my luck – he stomped about, realized I wasn’t immediately going to cater to his need, went out, and rolled a chair in. As my current office is my closet, he blocked the only egress.

Sigh. I was going to have to deal with him.

I hit the “Enter” button and made sure that I waited until I got confirmation on the screen. I was not going to mess anything else up with whatever the crisis du jour was.

“I know why we were abandoned” Anger blurted out, the words tumbling over themselves in their eagerness to escape and strike their target.

“Why were abandoned.” Darn. I had half a cup of coffee, slightly cold. Chances of that getting resolved soon were minimal.

“Himself. Why he abandoned us?” Again with the rushing words.

I sighed. Anger was always quick: spoke quickly, acted quickly. Trying to follow his reasoning was like trying to determine what kind of car had passed by the cloud of dust it left.

"Let's start back at the beginning."

"Himself. Abandoned. Us. Found. Out. Why."

My coffee was definitely not going to get a warm up.

"And we found this out how?"

"On the internet. You know I surf when you're busy. Keeps my mind distracted. Anyway. I did a search on The Firm, because you know that I'm always curious how things turned out, and sure enough, there was a new name listed, and he was the Senior VP, and obviously you were abandoned because you were now longer needed-"

5 seconds. He said the whole thing in 5 seconds.

I put up my hand and cut him off. "Okay. Back to facts. We left because things were not working out, and I needed a new job. I paid my debt and walked away. That company died and was replaced. Happens all the time."

"But the guy-"

"Yes?"

"It was a little after, and suddenly he appears and you go away."

"And it makes you angry?"

"Well, yeah! No one abandons us-"

"Blood pressure."

"Huh?"

"Your blood pressure. You've got to watch that."

I stretched out in the chair, leaning my back over until I heard the "Pop" of my ribcage. "You know we were growing apart anyway. If he found a person with better job skills, so much the better for him and the company. He has to provide for his family too."

"But-"

"And friends and associates grow apart over time as well. How do we know that this person did not fill a need in his life, a need we could not fill?"

"But-". Slower now. He was starting to think things through.

"And remember the conference in June. Didn't we write a letter dealing with all this and then cast it aside, putting it aside?"

"Well, yes." Anger looked reasonable now, much less offended. "We really can't control their actions, can we?"

I shook my head. "Nope, only our reaction to them. Remember: Be Better or Be Bitter - Your Choice."

He sat silently for a minute, looking down and away, looked at me, and then got up. "I feel better now. I think I'm going to go get some coffee."

I smiled as he left the closet, dragging the chair behind him. It had only taken us 3.5 years to get to this point. Maybe we were finally making progress.

And then it hit me: He was going to have coffee. Probably the last cup.

There went my warm up...