Today's update: holy cow am I angry. I am so angry with everyone, about everything. The person who drives too slowly in front of me. The colleague who answers a question with a question. The friend who posts too many happy-family pictures on Facebook. The teenage kid who decides she doesn't want to talk to me at all because she's fourteen. None of these people have done anything to merit anger - they're just doing them, leading their completely benign lives and really having nothing to do with me personally at all. And I hasten to add that I'm aware that I'm irrationally angry and so I don't act on it (or at least I try not to) - no road rage, no snapping at people, no giving Kid a hard time. This is all on me. I own it. But I don't enjoy it.
And I believe it is connected to the death of ex - something to do with being angry at the universe for screwing me over by saddling me with a drunk and crazy ex-husband who harasses me and messes with my daughter's mind and then drinks himself to death. It comes from self-pity - poor me, I deserve better, and I'm mad that I'm not getting the good stuff I deserve. I am aware of how self-centred this is - the universe has no grand plan to screw me over (or do anything else), I've had some bad experiences but lots of other people have had worse, and getting stuck in anger is toxic (and I'm not stuck all the time - I think it's the contrast between the moments when I'm really, REALLY angry about some minor thing and the moments when I'm not angry that are making me notice how strong the anger is).
I know that "complicated grief" can take many forms - maybe this endless (or so it feels) well of anger at the universe, the world, life, is one of them?