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Dear Readers: This is the first of a series of articles I've written and am just now releasing on the
subject.
The Tempo of Anger
-by Beau Burriola
Tick…. tick…. tick….tick
The second hand of the kitchen clock ticked loudly in unison with my heartbeat. Each second was
swelling more and more with the raw anger of every word we were both holding back now, biting our lips,
not speaking.
He sat to my right, staring off at some memory somewhere right, just far enough away from me. I sat to
his left, staring off at some memory just far enough away to keep him out of my sight. In our anger, we
sat there quietly, the most critical seconds passing by.
“You always complain about the little things!” I screamed at him earlier, frustrated that we were
becoming one of those couples who don’t have a legitimate disagreement, but insist on arguing about
everything. Tiny. Little. Fucking. Things. That don’t matter! I always thought, we were too mature for
the low-minded squabbles of couples with no communication skills or education. Surely, I always
thought, we were mature and intelligent enough to be able to handle a tiny bit of conflict resolution!
Yet here we at the same spot we’ve found ourselves in for months, completely exhausted with arguing and
now offering our final tit-for-tat punishment of total silence.
I listened hard to the sounds outside my beating head and somewhere far off, a Belgian ambulance went
screaming down the road and sent it’s urgency bouncing off all the old stone buildings, ricocheting
smaller and smaller until it hit my ear in echoes.
“The little things are what show you the big things!” he screamed back at me, frustrated that I
couldn’t see how little actions show a whole picture of a person, how doing one thing can paint a whole
picture. When I don’t roll over for a good night kiss or when I go away from the house for three hours
without word, these little things mean more and more. Surely, he thought, our relationship was mature
enough to know how to handle a little communication. Surely we were able to paint a better whole
picture. Yet here we were at the same spot we’ve found ourselves in for months, completely
exhausted.
We were beyond the rage, beyond the explosions, even beyond the tears, and now we sat drained. We had
thrown almost everything in our arsenal besides the biggest and most horrible weapons, the nuclear
options, and if we ever thought of using them, we were just too tired now.
Somewhere overhead, the crescendo of an arriving plane met the decrescendo of a parting plane, and
surely both of us imagined ourselves in happier times when we traveled the world together, all those
years together. Now we were living in the same house, same country, same everything – and we were never
further apart.
It sucks. You like to think that because you are 30, you would have learned how to handle this type of
arguing by now. You like to think you’ve got some control over how it will all come out, that you will
find better control of yourself and not go for the little buttons that are easy to push. You like to
think that this is other people’s problem, but it isn’t really. It’s everyone’s problem. It’s the
masochistic conundrum of living together. It’s the growing pains you live through or don’t, but which
always one day come.
Exhausted in our mutual silence, we lay floating on our anger, lost in argument and counter argument ,
beyond the worst of today’s battles, marking our casualties and hardening our hearts to the wounds of
another damn day with too much damn reality.
With all the galaxies of our resolve crashing and exploding inside, the little details of the world
outside continued, in perfect rhythm to one another, to the echo on the street, to the roaring of the
planes, to the heart beat in my head, to the ticking of the clock… each pounding second marking another
critical passing second that we’ll eventually make it through or not.
Tick… tick… tick…. tick…
"My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll
become a philosopher." – Socrates
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