Anger

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Today is one of those very rare days where I wake up so fantastically cranky that I sit around all day stewing and feeling like I want to punch someone. On days like this it feels like my only options are to either be angry or cry. In fact I think the reason I am angry is because I am more depressed than usual and just want to lie down and curl up in a ball –but I have to go to work and pretend everything is fine and do my job without interruption.

I am angry because I had to get up this morning when I was still ridiculously tired from hardly being able to sleep due to coughing so much because of this upper respiratory infection that I supposedly should be over by now. I am angry because I woke up a few minutes late and had to rush when packing my lunch and letting the dog out and then drive to work in the rain. I am irritated because I have to walk down more than 90 outside steps to get to my office, and the knowledge of having to take those same steps back up in the inclement weather with an umbrella that keeps turning inside out in the slightest win just ticks me off even more. I am bothered because my boss is so busy all the time and has so many meetings that we usually don't have enough time to go over her mail and the other things we need to discuss. I am cranky because I am hungry, but there is no food being served here today that I will eat, and the tomato soup I brought as my lunch does not appeal to me at all.

But I am thankful that I woke up at all this morning and that I was not late to work. I am thankful that I was able to afford to see the doctor and start the antibiotics I need to kick this cough, even though it seems to be taking too long. I am thankful that I am physically able to walk up and down 90 steps each day, and that I don't need to be on crutches even temporarily. I am thankful that I have a job, a state job that I cannot get laid off from or fired from for no good reason, one that I get 40 hours a week, Monday through Friday. I am thankful that I have food in the house that I can bring to work with me, and that at my job I can eat for free, even though it's prison food and not great, it's still food and it's still free.

I am also cranky because my arms are aching for the baby I wish to hold in them. My heart sighs when I think about the Christmas games we could play, and the traditions we could form. And my eyes glisten with tears when I think about the good times our family may never have. But I am thankful that God gave me the heart to want to love a baby so much, and the ability to feel emotions even when they are sad emotions. Most of all I am thankful for my terrific husband, my beautiful dog, and my cool stepson who is coming tonight for the week, because I would be so much more miserable without these forces of love in my life.