Lunch before work. Roasted green beans, brown rice with flaked arctic char and a walnut-cilantro pesto. Not bad. I'm here late, though, and lunch will delay me a little longer. I am trying not to care too much, though. I am trying to escape the cycle of guilt and anger that often threatens to engulf me, and through me, those around me.

It works like this: I feel guilty about being a bad wife or mother or friend or cook or writer or professional or whatever, then I deflect those bad feelings about myself into bad feelings towards others ("I'm a bad _________ because so-and-so is forever messing me up," etc.), then I get angry and either snipe in little mean ways, or, if anger has been festering in me for a while, I snap and lash out in big mean ways. It doesn't matter that my perception of being a bad whatever is distorted, and it doesn't matter that other people are not really to blame. I have come far enough now in dealing with my guilt/anger complex to recognize both truths. The knowledge is helpful, but no magic bullet. Anger still gets hold of me. Right now my spine feels crumpled up, bent unnaturally, with all the anger twisted around it. It hurts, and I don't want it, but that is still not enough to exorcise it.

As with many other problems I've faced in life, thinking through the ethical ramifications is useful. When I snipe or snap or sigh or scold, here is what it says to my target: You are an object that is failing to conform to my desires and to my self-centric view of the world. You are an object that must not, cannot presume to be a person. My wrath is a righteous response to an ill-behaved object. For those who have the confidence of self to know my view is wrong, that they are people, not objects, this treatment will tend to poison whatever trust exists between me and them. And for those whose self-ideation is weak--children, for instance--or who fall under my authority and therefore give special weight to my judgments, this treatment is even more toxic, as they may indeed try to adopt my viewpoint and accept that they are nothing more than objects, deserving of my casual cruelty and disregard. Anger is destructive, and I do not want it in my relationships, whether private or professional.

Remembering this, I can sometimes put aside my anger. It helps to remember, too, that I am not an evil person because I feel anger. Balancing a child and an academic career is hard, sometimes crushingly hard. After I have apologized, I must let the past be the past. And that is the other talisman I hold against this cycle: that as toxic words and actions destroy people and relationships, so kind, respectful, modest words revive them, preserve them, and help them to flourish. The past is the over, but the choice and the power to do good to others is always here. Right here.