PopcornJackTerry

I’m a fraud.

There really is no other word for it. Maybe humbug. I think that’s the word the Wizard of oz used to describe himself when he was found out by Dorothy and her crew. Feel free to use whichever word you like better. I should offer refunds to anyone who bought my last book, you know the one where I write about to live a positive life and how I always find the good side of everything. Because apparently I don’t. Apparently I’m not a happy, positive person. Apparently I am still just an angry temperamental little person who still can’t control my anger.

I’m sure some of you are thinking that I must be in the middle of a melancholy afternoon bender. And I’m sure there are others that are waiting for the other shoe to drop and me to have a punchline to make this a joke. Trust me, neither one is true. Because I know there are even others who have known me for a long time, and remember when I was much younger and the anger was much less controlled. They know. They were there. They heard the outbursts, they saw the tantrums.

One thing they could tell you is that is was almost always the silliest stupidest things, little events that I always took as an insult to my pride that I would blow into outrageous proportions, and today was no different.

A miscommunication that I perceived as a slight I quickly let explode into a blinding anger. The argument that had been going on via text message became alive when the co-worker I was mad at showed up to explain what was going on, and even though I heard what she was saying, and could somehow process that she had just been caught in the middle, I couldn’t let it go. She kept trying to explain what had happened, but I wouldn’t have any of it.

At that point another coworker sat down at the bar and found our argument amusing and started to laugh. I told him twice that he should shut up and walk away because he wasn’t helping the situation. He didn’t, so I turned from the co-worker i had been arguing with and said to the other person:

“Listen you brain damaged faggot, get the fuck out of here.”

Justifiably I was fired. I have no problem with that. There are lines you don’t cross in any situation, and that is certainly one of the biggest. Any problem I have with this situation (and I have a lot of them) stems from within, and the greatest problem is the reason why I chose to say the words I said. If I had said it from a position of homophobia (“This guy is gay. I don’t like gay people.”) it would just as damaging and just as insulting and just as wrong but at least homophobia can be educated away. But I said it from a place of anger (“I know this word will hurt the most and get my point across the quickest.”) and apparently, after almost forty years of working on it, I am still no less angry than I’ve ever been.

When I was twelve I hit my best friend. It did not take her long to forgive me, but it took me years to forgive myself because I felt I couldn’t forgive myself until I would never do anything like that again, that I could never be so explosive over such a meaningless situation. I thought I had gotten there. I guess I proved myself wrong, and now all I can do is wonder if this is who I am always going to be. If it’s taken me this long to get exactly where I was when I was twelve, what could I possibly do to make myself even marginally better?

I talk about living a life where apologies are unnecessary because you should never do anything to anyone that you should have to apologize for, and that you should live without regrets, because it is what you do, good or bad, that makes you who you are. It is time to obviously revisit those theories.

First and foremost I would like to apologize to the coworker i directed that awful word at and tell him how sorry I am. Whether he chooses to believe it or not there is deep sincerity in my apologize and I will do everything in my power to become a better person so that I am never driven to such a point of stupidity and anger again. It is possible that I will never get a chance to apologize to him in person nor that he will see the changes that I will put myself through to become a better person, but the memory of my anger and the hurt that I know it caused will stay with me forever, serving as a reminder. Likewise I am sorry to my other coworker, someone who was caught in the middle. If I had not been such a proud person who could not accept that things weren’t as I perceived, I never would have said the angry words at her. And to my boss, my coworkers and my customers that I have let down and disappointed,I am sorry.

And to you, my friends. My friends who believe in me and support me and always have the best to say about me. I am sorry that I am not the person you all believe me to be.There is a disturbed irony that a few hours after I post this I will be back on facebook asking for votes for a new drink making competition. In other words, after doing the least popular thing a person can do I am going to be asking for help in what is ostensibly a popularity contest. I don’t know what to say to that. Vote with your hearts. I’d like to say that being a bartender and drink maker is only a part of who I am and not to let one part of my behavior make you judge another part of me, but even I don’t believe that to be true.

A chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link, and a person is only as good as their weakest personality trait. I may have a lot of wonderful qualities that have drawn people to me (and I am NOT posting this as a passive/aggressive “please tell me how good I really am” ploy) but if I am still an angry little man who is not afraid to use the harshest and ugliest tactics in order to protect my fragile ego and overinflated sense of pride, I am nothing to be looked to.

I am a fraud.