Firstly, I'm a nerd, but the comic book reference I'm about to use is my husband's fault. There is a superhero called Green Latern (the movie recently came out, don't even get me started on it) who has a "power ring" that can allows him to do several things like fly and create constructs with the light from his green lantern ring. What many people who don't keep up with the comic books don't know is that there is a whole spectrun of "Latern Corps", from Red to Purple. Green in the spectrum represents the power of will, while the others correspond to different emotions. The Red Lanterns, for instance, are fueled by rage (but righteous rage), while the Purple Lanterns are fueld by Love. These different Lantern Corps interact with each other in a number of ways. Yellow (fear) interferes with Green (will), Blue (hope) discharges Red (rage), and so on and so forth.

The reason I bring this up is because my husband, in his sweet comic book geek way, says that I'm a Red Lantern, because it seems like I'm angry a lot (though usually for good reason), but that he's a Blue Lantern, because he has an abundant supply of optimism, and can always discharge my Red Lantern-ness, so we're perfect for each other. Yes, I know, it's dorky and complicated, but it got me to thinking and there is a point buried in here somewhere, so bear with me.

Most people would never think I had a rage problem. My kung fu instructor used to get on to me constantly for being too timid in sparring class. Most people only get to see the taciturn me, because I'm normally good at compartmentalizing my emotions. In reality, there are times when I am so angry it's frightening to me. I rarely act on it, but it's there, seething underneath my skin. Since I never allow it to erupt, it hardens up inside of me like lava turning insto stone, and that worries me, because, to continue the metaphor, it hardens me. There was a time in my life when I would have been called a compassionate person, and I still try to be, but it's more of an effort now. It takes more effort to forgive people for their mistakes (myself included), and it makes that part of me that says "Weakness is failure, failure is death" seem louder. I feel like I'm turning into stone sometimes, figuratively speaking, and I think people pick up on that, because that's how they treat me, as if I were emotionless stone. Then when I actually crack and display emotions, they're always surprised.

I'm not even sure what can be done about this. I'm not sure what causes the rage to exist in the first place, except perhaps that I often feel like I'm trying to swim upstream with a backpack of lead weights, and nothing really ever seems to make it go away. It just goes dormant inbetween flairs and pops up next time.