Old music tonight.  A tune that has been out of my rotation for at least five years.  It has been a rough week, but this song is not helping my mood.  If I’m smart, I’ll lock myself in my office tonight and eat sedatives until I wake up in a puddle of drool.

I know that won’t happen . . .

I don’t emote well.  When something bothers me, I suck it up and ignore it.  I bury things so deep that, after a while, even I have no idea why I’m angry.

I wear my feelings on my hands.  I express things in little outbursts of anger and frustration, spilling over the sides just enough to keep from overflowing.  Anger is the only emotion I know how to control.

I take it out on the heavy bag, or I take it out on the weights.  The callouses on my hands – and the scars on my knuckles – read like a geological core sample.

Both of my parents buried things.

My mother was long suffering.  She was the second youngest of six daughters.  Her father abandoned the family when she was young.  Her mother’s idea of discipline was so hard that her alcoholic common-law husband had to intercede.

Usually when he saw her reaching for the cast-iron pans.

My mother was a devout Christian.  It seemed that there was no limit to the amount of rage and sadness she could hide behind her teeth.  The worse things got, the more she projected compassion and kindness.

When the Church abandoned her, the cracks in her armor started showing.  She still smiles, but behind it she looks tired.  Two bad husbands and a life of unrewarded servitude have left their marks.

I can’t tell you what the old man looks like these days.  I haven’t spoken to him in 10 years.  I’m not optimistic.

Mom was his third marriage.

My father was raised in an orphanage.  He lost his mother before he turned 6, and was beaten for most of his childhood.  Relatively speaking, these are the “shiny, happy” parts of his youth that I can actually talk about . . .

Vietnam probably didn’t help.

You can measure my father’s emotional distance in astronomical units.  My drill instructor was sympathetic by comparison.

I’m don’t know why I’m sharing any of this.

Easier for me this way, I think.  No real emotional investment.  If I told this to someone that cared about me, it would open up a dialogue.  That would involve sharing.  I don’t deal with sympathy well, either.

I used to think I didn’t speak to my father because I didn’t want to.  I’m starting to believe that maybe it’s because I can’t . . . because going there would mean dealing with things I can’t control.

The other day I watched an interview with Joe Frazier.  His still harbors a grudge against Ali.  He still works the bag every day just to keep his head on straight.

To get the venom out.

Is that going to be me in my 60’s?  Bashing my hands arthritic just to make it through my day?

I don’t know how to feel about that.