I love my mom
more than anything in the world. That being said, growing up we butted heads
plenty, due to our extremely similar personalities. From as far back as I can
remember, I would get into little fights with my mom. At a young age, I took
her yelling very personally. As soon as she would yell at me, I would get angry
right back. Throughout high school when I got in trouble, my mom was the main disciplinary.
It usually went like this; my mom would find out something that I had done,
confront me and get angry that I lied. I would admit to it, but try to defend
myself. We’d fight for awhile, but these fights always ended with my mom saying
something along the lines of, “You know that I love you no matter what, but if
you do this again I’ll take your phone for a month/ground you for a month/take
away the car/etc.” At the end of the day, I never doubted for a moment how much
my mom loved me, and I always felt guilty for making her feel bad, so I would
apologize and she’d forgive me and we would cry and hug it out. This little
cycle happened many times in my life. However, if I was in BIG trouble, my dad
would take to me. He’d call me into his office, stone-faced, quiet and disappointed.
So throughout my childhood I was shown two very different outlets for anger. At
this point in my life, I have come to realize that my mom is a very busy,
hardworking woman with four children who has a lot on her plate. As someone who
grew up in a large Italian family, getting loud vocally is her channel for
emotion. Oftentimes she’s yelling, but the yelling is her stresses from the day
coming out, rather than actually being that mad about thing that she is potentially
yelling about. So I think of quiet disappointment as a much more serious way of
expressing anger than yelling.
The
way my mom wears her emotions on her sleeve is definitely something I’ve
inherited. In terms of anger, I think I’m pretty open although some days I wish
I could just keep it to myself. I do know that sometimes I just try to
dissociate myself from situations instead of facing the anger that they may be
causing me. I think I handle anger in a weird way….I am open about small issues
on a day to day basis, but serious things I often keep quiet about to an
unhealthy point.
In
terms of artistic process, I believe that anger will inevitably arise at times,
but the question is whether it helps or hinders the process. One huge thing I learned
this past semester from costume designing 5th
of July and from directing my first short film, is that compromise is more
effective than anger. Sometimes, regardless of your original ideas about an
artistic project, obstacles arise. I think it is important to allow yourself to
feel angry or disappointed if you have to stray from a choice that you truly
believe in, but then open your mind to compromise and collaboration. Due to the
emotional nature of our work, sometimes we will get angry. But I think that it’s
important to channel that anger into something constructive, rather than
letting it take over and set in.
