Dear Mum

Dear Mum,

I have a confession; you know that hole by my bedroom, the one I told you I put my hand through when I tripped? It was believable because of how weak leaky gutters had made some of the walls. It was only half true. I didn’t trip. I was angry, so angry that I punched through the wall. I can't recall what made me so angry, but I saw red for a moment. Boom! There was a hole in the wall, and I needed to develop a story to cover it. I remember no one was home, no witnesses, so there was only my word. And I’m sorry to admit my word was a lie. I had never been your angry child. I would like to say this was the first time my frustration took a physical turn, but it wasn’t.

Remember the splinter, the bad one, and it was the length and width of a sharpened pencil lead? I was angry then. In a childish fit of rage, I kicked the end of the wooden bed. I bit a pencil in half, trying to keep from crying as you and dad removed it. All the pain, and I still did not learn that anger would not solve my problems.

I was a sophomore, and my world was falling apart. My grades declined, and my anger grew. Finally, the rage grabbed me again, leading me to play bloody knuckles with a pile of ice outside our dorm room, packed up by a snowplow. My hand was so scuffed; I spent the entire week with my hand wrapped up. The campus clinic did not question it when I lied again, telling them I had fallen while riding my bike.

Once, after readmission to the same college, a small group of friends hostilely accused me of emotionally cheating on my then-fiance, which was wholly unfounded and untrue. It was the only time that wrath had ever come close to physical violence on a person. But, I restrained myself when my emotions overwhelmed me. I’m sure there are still knuckle marks, my knuckle marks, embedded into the drywall in the college center lounge.

Then, there was the most recent offense. I got upset at my life, my husband, and my children. I was overwhelmed that my husband had to work late again, and the kids refused to eat what I had cooked for dinner. The frustration washed over me. I remember cleaning off the table and scooping the uneaten meals into the trashcan. I seethed with frustration and anger. Then, picking up one of the kid’s yellow plastic plates, I scooped the uneaten food into the trashcan, and the next, I slammed the plate into the trashcan as hard as I could. Finally, I destroyed the lid of the trash can. It now stands in our kitchen as a testament to my wrath.

I suppose I’m writing you to ask because I’m not brave enough to have this conversation in person if I did this a lot as a kid. Did it get overshadowed by my brother’s explosive and more apparent acts of anger? Is it because my destructive tendencies were few and far between? I only ever destroyed things, thankfully.

I’m concerned for my kids because I don’t know if this is normal. One of them has a propensity for destruction when things overwhelm her. I worry about what kind of example I set for them. They haven’t witnessed me breaking things. I beg for advice and forgiveness for the destruction I caused in my youth. I know, in retrospect, that it was unacceptable.

Thank you for loving me despite all my flaws,

Sammy

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