Anger management, for reals

I wrote this several weeks ago:

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As I drive pass BADMAN's truck, 4, maybe 5 nights a week, I begin to feel slightly queasy and anxious. The feeling is mostly gone by the time I arrive at my own door, so really only lasts for a minute or two, but it is there. It makes me angry to acknowledge this and I'm more than little annoyed that that I now feel vaguely furtive and unsafe at my own home base. I'm piqued at the unfairness that he's more than likely forgotten all about The Incident of the Hammer (heh, until he pulls that crap again and someone reports him, to find that lo! there is an existing report of the CRAZY), while it looms large in my own mind.

His existence genuinely makes me question the goodness (and fundamental stability) of the people in the world and his completely unreasoning anger makes me doubt the safety of the unarmed populace. I know objectively that bullies often win, sometimes by default (the polices' advice was to "stay away from people like that!"), and terrible things happen to ordinary, innocent people every day, but this is as close as I've come to (stranger/unpredictable) violence (for which I am deeply grateful) and I really don't appreciate the wake up call.

I prefer to live a life in which I can assume that I will not interact with violently unreasonable people, that I am both objectively and subjectively safe, and that folks, on the whole, are pleasant and helpful, or at least, represent neutral encounters. I enjoy living this dream. It makes me a calmer, better, and more optimistic person. I am a more productive and social friend, worker, and citizen. I bitterly resent this intrusion in my vision of life.

I hope I can move past this unfortunate experience and retain my worldview and sense of self. A lesson was learned, but it doesn't have to be a lesson in which I change. (Also, if this is the worst thing that nearly happens to me in ~30 years, I'll take those odds.)

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and today:

Now that he's gone, or, at least, his truck has been gone for a couple of weeks (I hope that girl smartened up and dumped his jackass HARD), I kinda miss him. Despite the uneasiness that glimpses of the Truck of Doom caused, I was able to indulge a lot of my random anger in the intervening weeks in fantasies of Perfectly Justified Truck Demolition. Or sneaky truck attacks! Or, daydreams of look! What's my "new" bike doing in the back of that stanky truck? I must rescue it! The possibility of maybe, perhaps, someday doing something mean and potentially costly to BADMAN was very soothing. His truck was always here, so there was a reliable sitting duck just waiting for me to vent some steam, and that was kind of...nice.

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updated today:

Eh, nah. So glad he's gone.