The Hard Truth -- Part two of two

For example, in April 1996, I woke my best friend Bob up at 5 am to simply tell him where I was. I had left work at 1 pm the day before and had driven directly to Newark Airport, under an extremely strong compulsion to go to Holy Land. As soon as I said “Hi,” on the phone, Bob asked “Where the heck are you? No one’s heard from you and we’ve been searching everywhere!” I had to tell him “I’m in London, at the Guardian’s grave,” which, you can imagine, invoked a very shocked reaction. Being in an altered mental state, I didn’t have the courage to tell my Janet what I’d done, so I had called Bob instead. Needless to say, I can definitely be impulsive. And that was only one of four of my manic episodes, which worried Janet to death, and landed me in mental hospitals for weeks at a time. But that’s another story.

I know I can also be a perfectionist in my work and play, and have consciously made efforts to ease that impulse and go with the flow and not worry about things so much. Writing short pieces for memoir classes like this one keep me honest that way. Even around the house, I take more pleasure now in crossing things off my list than doing them perfectly, which is another thing I thank Janet for.

Of course, I had many other outbursts. Like the times I cursed and shouted at my staff because I wasn’t happy with the way a job was done, which may have been my perfectionism talking. My apologies afterward were too little too late, and those occurrences totally tarnished my otherwise affable character. This led to a formal complaint against me by the target of one of my more severe outbursts, and rightly so. Because of it, I spent three sessions with a counselor at the State’s Employee Advisory Service in 2008, reviewing anger management techniques. Of course I understood everything she said intellectually, especially “Pause before you speak.” But my full emotional maturity may still be questionable. So I lost my management position over this outburst, even though, because I had over 30 years with the State, I was able to keep many of my other management jobs. 

That occurrence still haunts me to this day – not that I lost my position, but that I could be so cruel and unthinking while berating another person. I still feel remorse for that outburst, and also when i raise my voice to Janet. Nothing hurts her more....

So dear friends, and I count all of you readers and writers here as friends, if you see me getting on my high horse and interrupting your reasoned speech, or interjecting my opinion as a statement of fact, or making a snide remark, please don’t let me get away with it. Ultimately everyone learns from their mistakes, and I am still learning. I am learning to listen to your beautiful and poignant stories without making judgments, and I am also learning to write the truth about myself, even though it’s often hard to admit.