My First Angry Memory

I had just entered the library at the end my school day. I was very excited for this day to be over so that I could spend more time with the person that I loved, my girlfriend. It had been a brisk winter day, certainly not a day when red roses and blue violets would normally have been able to grow, but here we were on that day of love and school was finally over. I scanned the room for the table with all of the flowers.
I had seen it already that day between Calculus and English classes to make sure that my roses had been delivered. It had been littered with vases and bouquets for other girls in the school, but I quickly recognized my gift. I remember placing the order at the florist for fifteen roses of all different colors to symbolize my love and the number of months of our wonderful relationship. They had been beautiful flowers, thorns and all. Even the small amount of baby breath enhanced the color. I was sure that my message would be well communicated.
I floated over to the table but could no longer see that marvelous display of foliage that had been present an hour before. Perhaps they had already been picked up; I hurried down to my locker to find my girlfriend putting her things away. "Thank you so much for the flowers! I love them!" and she threw her arms around me. Thank goodness, I thought to myself, she did get them. But I looked around.
"Where are the flowers?" I asked as I loaded my backpack and closed my locker.
She finished loading up her things as well. "I saw them earlier in the library. I left them there so I wouldn't destroy them." We hoisted our backpacks and headed back to the library. Perhaps I had just overlooked them out of nerves.
Upon entering the library we were both expecting to see the roses. My eyes had not deceived me five minutes before; the flowers were not there. My first thought was that someone had moved them somewhere else. I tried to keep my cool and walked around the library and through the office. They were not to be found.
I had had things stolen from me before in my life: pens, paper, notes. Sure, I would get upset when this happened, but to me these were items that were easily replaceable and I didn't feel the need to get mad. Should I have let people know my opinions on stealing? Now, when it really mattered the most to me, someone thought it was funny to take these roses to see what kind of reaction they could get? I began to feel my face get hot, my hands shake, my thoughts were centered on one thing...Who took the roses?
This emotion of anger was new to me. I had seen it in movies, on TV, among my friends. I really didn't know what was going on around me. I must have ran around the the school halls ten times hoping that I would find the perpetrator so that I could scream at them. Thankfully the students had all left for the day and only faculty and staff were left. While my girlfriend spoke with them rationally, I continued to search every hall while my blood began to boil with my veins. I found the card that I had written in a trash can in the hall. I was so pissed off I can't even remember how long I ran around looking for these flowers. Time had no place in my search for the culprit. And once I found them...well, I didn't know what was going to happen, I hadn't thought about that. I just knew that I was angry, so very angry. I wanted to yell and shout at them, but would I really?
The flowers were found. The school secretary saw a girl get off the bus with them. She brought them back to the school for us. She told us that the girl had wanted to take them home, so that she could tell her family that someone had got her flowers. The poor thing. One of the flowers was bent when we received them. We both knew the girl who had done it and felt sorry for her and understood the situation.
I don't know if she was ever punished for what she did, but I didn't feel it was my place to deal it out. We ended up buying her a flower.


This memory teaches me that it is possible to forgive people for what they do. Acting out of anger doesn't help solve a situation. It is better to keep one's head and think before acting. Anger caused me to become a different person, someone that is not kind and thoughtful and can hurt others. However my inner self did not care about this girl . I wanted that person to feel just how upset I was. This isn't normally how I react in situations. This experience really helped me learn to not get upset about those things that don't matter as much in the world. Nothing happened to me personally or to my girlfriend. If something had happened to us, this story would have been different, but it was just flowers.