In my opinion there’s no better way to release anger and frustration than prayer. But let’s be honest: Sometimes it helps to break things.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/Vi37iGjfGsM
When I lived in the house on Revere Beach, there was a storage room beneath the concrete patio where I collected all the empty beer bottles from the numerous parties we had in the basement apartment.
I spent a lot of time in that room. I’d blast my old stereo, with sounds of The Ramones or Black Sabbath wafting through the air. I’d sneak cigarettes, read and write a lot of bad poetry.
And, when life became too much to take, which was often, I’d line those bottles against the wall and smash them. I’d throw the old, decaying books that belonged to my great-grandmother, left behind from when she was living in the basement apartment. I’d throw other bottles. I’d throw just about anything, enchanted by the different sounds you got from using different objects.
To an angry 19 year old with a softball-sized chip on his shoulder, it was the most satisfying release I could get without being drunk or stoned — though I was still drunk and stoned a fair amount of the time. And it was better than hitting people, not that I was ever a good shot when real people were in front of me.
Sometimes I miss the beer bottle collection under the patio. It made for such a quick, easy release of anger.
I guess you have to find a better way when you’re closing in on your middle ages.
Breaking bottles around the kids wouldn’t exactly be model parenting.
I guess that’s why, in my 30s, I would break myself repeatedly with vicious food binges. If I couldn’t make bottles go boom, I could at least make my gut go boom.
But that’s problematic, too. The belly doesn’t go boom under those conditions. It just gets bigger and bouncier.
Today, with the binge eating in remission and nothing but a keyboard in front of me, I just pound the shit out of the keys, writing, writing, writing.
You know what? It’s almost as good as smashing beer bottles.
But I still miss it some days.
