My anger was a cage and the cage had no door.
Strangeness by Alex Armstrong

This should be how I describe my teen years. I was an angry guy with a lot of emotions and thankfully I found poetry and industrial music as a way to process them.

I often think about how close I could have come to really ruining my life with the fuel of rage. I am a big guy and I was then. At 6’5″ and north of 260 pounds in high school, I could have channeled my anger into something far darker than Trent Reznor, black lights and filling notebooks with words.

One day I found myself out of the cage, unsure sure of how I’d got there. Only one explanation accounts for all the facts. I had invented a door, and the key that fit in its lock, and let myself out.

That door had a name. It happens to be the same name as my wife. The key took longer to forge, but it was a fire my wife started and the perspective she provided allowed me to work the forge and smith a key that fit the lock of my anger.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my wife, Annie. I am thankful for the perspective she brought me then and the love, support, affection and humor she continues to bring me now.

I do not know where I would be without her, but I’m sure glad she’s here.