Me Want Cookie!

I looked throughout the display, and there wasn't one anywhere. That sugar cookie shaped like a big flower, covered with lemon frosting. I wanted one, with milk. Or half a one, to be exact because I was planning to share the other half with my friend.

The nice man asked if he could help me, and I told him what I was looking for. He explained very patiently that they were transitioning from the summer sugar cookie (the flower) to the fall sugar cookie (the pumpkin) so for about two days they would have no sugar cookies at all. He pointed to the plain square shortbread cookie and told me it was just like the sugar cookie.

It wasn't. It wasn't shaped like a flower. It didn't have lemon frosting. I smiled kindly at him and thanked him in my best grown-up voice. But my inner two-year-old was ready for a meltdown. I was angry and frustrated. My eyes were about to tear up and my throat felt hot and tight.

I left, not getting any cookie at all. Because if I couldn't have the flower sugar cookie with the lemon frosting, I didn't want any cookie. Not a shortbread. Not an M & M. Not a peanut butter. No cookie.

Such a fuss, over a cookie. But you're probably ahead of me and have already figured out I wasn't mad about the cookie. Not at all. To say I am uncomfortable feeling and showing anger is an understatement. I was in a relationship for many years where my anger added to his anger could have blown my whole world apart, and I was trying very hard to keep it together. It wasn't okay to be angry. It wasn't safe. And if I get angry, will I turn into my worst nightmare, my mother? Shrill voice, screaming and raging, cutting the people I love to pieces with my words? And if people know I am angry with them, my pride tells me I have somehow given them the upper hand. I have lots of issues surrounding anger.

My anger is justified. I am angry and frustrated with a number of things, some present day, and some things in the past that I never allowed myself to get angry over. And I finally have arrived in a safe place where it is okay for me to feel it and express it. That is such a great thing.

To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a cookie is just a cookie. And sometimes it's not.

Susan