Uneven aging: The afflicted partner's anger
Even among parters with magnificent levels of self-regulation, anger easily arises in Uneven Aging, especially when the disparity lasts for months. There are, to me, Three Furies: those angers generated by injustice, frustration, and fear. Anger feels like walking on a floor full of glass shards: tiny slivers such as a cancelled appointment, jagged chunks like a surgical complication—and the afflicted person is walking in bare feet. The caregiver, shod, tries to sweep a clear path, but just like the debris from a dropped glass, sometimes misses fragments. My first experience with anger in an unwell partner was over forty years ago, when I sat on a café' terrace with Lewis and Paul. Paul had AIDS, and by then was in a wheelchair. I joined them for a late lunch, and arrived after my dance class, still in the ragtag dance pants and legwarmers of jazz ballet. When I mentioned the class, Paul, who had been a professional dancer, said, "How nice for you." I had inadvertently s...
