The "Send" Button

A few days ago, I was in a particularly foul mood.  I had talked to some friends about this person who was irritating me, and they all tried to talk me off the ledge.  For the most part, they succeeded and helped me to stay calm throughout the day.  Their points were logical and well-taken.

In the evening, after I put the kids to bed, I started to feel annoyed again.  The rational and reasonableness I had gained during the day was fading and my emotions took over.  I started to build up arguments of why I was completely justified in being outraged.

So I wrote an email to the person who was the root cause of my irritation.  Describing exactly how I felt.  With no emotion left unexpressed.  It was, as they say in Harry Potter, a howler.

I knew while I was writing that this note was mean spirited and might have deep repercussions.  I knew that sending a nasty email was not the best way to solve the problem.  Yet, I felt so much better after writing it all out.  Though it was not the kindest letter, it did help me to clarify my thoughts.

But writing it wasn't enough.  I had to hit the "send" button.  I wanted someone to read my diatribe.  I needed to hit the send button.  It was getting later, and I was getting more worked up.  Fortunately, there was some small sliver my rational mind still working that said "Do not send to intended recipient."  So I marked the email "Draft" and sent it to my friend, Diane.  I wrote an introduction telling her I was thinking of sending this to the irritant, and asked what she thought.  Hitting the send button worked.  I felt a huge release of tension after I sent it.

Why was the send button so magical?  Why did I need to hit it?  Why wasn't it enough to just leave the note in my draft box?  Writing how I felt helped clarify my thoughts.  When I hit the send button, the note became something more than my rantings.  It became a permanent record of how I felt, where my feelings could not be erased.  Hitting the send button gave me temporary closure.  Once the note was gone, I stopped stewing for the night.  It gave me power, even if I sent to someone else.  It also gave me a responsibility to figure out how to deal with this problem directly.  I couldn't just send it to Diane, and then not follow-up.  Diane would hold me accountable, both to be civilized and to figure out a reasonable next step.

Diane goes to sleep early and wakes up early.  I knew she wouldn't check her email until the morning when she is drinking her coffee.  When she saw it, she immediately replied and put up the roadblock:

Lauren, 

Holy shit!!! Have you already sent X_____ that draft!?

She recommended that I rewrite the note a dozen times.  When I get it right, I should hand the note to  the person instead of sending it via email.  One of my husband's colleagues recommends a similar strategy for writing difficult letters in professional situations:  write whatever it is you need to get off your chest, delete it, and then write a new letter you intend to send, minus the vitriol.  I did talk to the irritant about what was bothering me.  I left the bitterness on the page and did not bring it to the conversation.

I am very lucky to have a friend like Diane at the other end of the send button.  I will apologize to her, though, as she probably burned her throat and nasal passages while choking on her coffee while reading my email.  Shouldn't we all have a friend (or two or three or four) who can be our "send" button, the one who will safely listen to our rants and then bring us back to earth?