I’m so grateful for blogging; how else could I give voice to my acidic internal monologues? Is there any point to having a rant in private? My years of diary entries just don’t compare to the validation I get from blog ranting (branting as I call it). All it takes is one kind person to confer a typographic nod or virtual lemon-taster face in the comments section of my online dribblings to satisfy my vented spleen.
The thing is, I’m only any good at ranting on paper. I can’t do it in person. In reality, my brain goes fuzzy and I spit out inconsequential rubbish when moments in my life become heated. I’ll come out with things like, “Yeah… and your car is the same colour as my grandfather’s teeth!” in a flash of road rage or, “I’m packing my suitcase… the only one we have that still has a really good zip… where did we put that again?” in a moment of domestic pique. I’m a non-sensical, semi-hysterical arguer, as articulate as a kumquat in a fruit bowl.
Whenever my youngest daughter throws one of her hissy fits of star-exploding, galaxy-forming intensity, my husband will just glance at me for a second, left eyebrow ever-so-slightly raised in a way that it says it all. She. Gets. It. From. You.
If it’s any excuse, I have never been taught how to argue articulately; it just wasn’t my childhood experience of conflict. Things in our household were always either in first gear (sulky, silent, behind-closed-doors, simmering) or fifth gear (violent). I was incubated in a walk-upon-eggshells, glass hot- house type situation, and I’ve never learned how to do the in-between. It’s one of the many reasons I could never be a politician. I would definitely end up calling the opposition ‘toss pieces’ or some other spittle producing insult that would leave the House of Commons microphone so drenched in fury that no one else could use it for days.
It’s a real skill, being able to not lose it, and yet still convey one’s wrath. My husband is brilliant at perfectly articulate, constructive and appropriate crossness. For me not to do the ranting harpie routine would require an actual personality transplant. Am I too late to learn? I’m just not sure I can get the angry woman out of me unless there is some kind of extraction thing that can be done, like liposuction but for vitriol.
Maybe if I reframe my ‘rants’ as ‘passion’ things will work better for me. Perhaps I am passionate about the environment rather than foaming at the mouth like a myxomatosis-riddled bunny about wanton littering and waste. Maybe I am passionate about women’s rights rather than being a bubbling cauldron of fury about everyday sexism. Is it working? Not sure if I’ve convinced myself yet.
I fear that if I don’t at least write, my rants will stay in my pants, and we all know how irritating cystitis is. Wish me luck, I’m trying to get good at fighting.
haha you crack me up! I am EXACTLY the same!! I know that fury induced tongue tied-ness!! xx
It´s good you express you toughs in one way or another :F you remember myself a couple of years ago
Argumentative siblings, that’s how you learn!
Am worried for my son as an only child and he won’t get years of practice.
Sara you express beautifully what we relate to on so many levels! Our puritan New England family had the ‘everybody’s happy’ gear and if you weren’t in that gear there was always the threat of being thrown out….not that they ever said this out loud, but rides past the local ‘bad boys and girls’ home were a good reminder. I have to sometimes remind myself that the fact I’m not living in a jail somewhere is a major miracle.
I too am pants at rants – especially if it’s at my other half who very frustratingly ALWAYS gets the better of me – leaving me to sulk in silence or bang the keys of my laptop loudly in the hope that he thinks I’m writing about him..
Yes I too am toss @ having a proper argument – and always afterwards think up myriads of perfectly constructed sentences which, I could, have shouted right back – had I not been shouting: “your fat and your hairs greasy”…pah
good luck with your new found passionate debating pants ….
Honestly, I have such a crush on your writing, and I am also very similar in my approach to ranting – it’s either sulking or going psycho-mental – I wonder if this is actually a woman thing – especially our generation who weren’t really taught how to integrate our anger – it wasn’t seen as a particularly feminine thing to express???? So we kind of don’t quite know what to do with the rage…. We need feminine anger role models – bring on Kali and Boudicca. My family was on a very similar mood spectrum too. Great photo BTW.