When Anger is Your Friend

Often, we think of anger as something bad in our life. As children we were taught not to display it, feel it, or talk about it. We were to simply swallow our feelings or throw them into the nearest bedroom wall and leave them there. Unfortunately, anger rarely stays where we want it to.

Anger comes in numerous shapes and forms. Sometimes it grows small, is buried deep like a seed, under cover of darkness and damp. At other times it violently explodes in colors of orange and red, spilling from your mouth and hands like humanoid lava, covering those whom you would choose to love and protect. It can turn inward, asking you to feed upon, or starve your own flesh, or turn outward and be fired out the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. No matter what form anger takes, once it has been established in our lives, it never departs without an invitation to do so.

I've lived most of my life in anger. Anger was my friend, my protector, my shield against the hurtful things of the world. I used my anger like a blanket, comforting myself with self-righteousness and justification. It kept me warm at night, left me steamy and sweaty as it rested just below the surface of my skin. Yes, with my anger I could keep arguments going for days, excuse my rudeness towards family and friends, tell off anybody who got in my way and stop people in their tracks with a cold look and keep from really being honest with myself.

Yes anger was my friend. But like any relationship that is not based in love and respect, anger and I had an horrible break-up. My anger began to manifest in the form of panic attacks. I had a decision to make - give up the anger or die. Anger was not longer my friend. I needed as a kid, growing up in the projects, but the woman I became could not longer carry the weight of it.

After several years in therapy, I have finally replaced the anger with self-confidence, self-worth, self-love. The weight is lifted and I have be-friend-ed myself. Anger is no longer my friend, though he does come pass at times (like when Bernard is out past his curfew, or Christian doesn't clean his bathroom, again!, or Jerome refuses to take life wholly serious), but he doesn't stay for long.

Peace Unto You,
Tina

Working Towards Forgiveness

Recently, I made a long overdue phone call to my father. It was a call I had been putting off for over a year as I went through the painful process of identifying, naming, and accepting my feelings. We had ghosts, the two of us. Emotional wisps that existed just out of our reach, allowing us to function - go to work, school, raise our kids, love our partners, or not - but always drifted overhead just out of reach. Ghosts. Thin veils of white, almost see through skins, like those of a onion which peels off with concentrated rubbing, or boiling, or slices of steel.

At forty-seven, calling the man who raised me, then didn't, who left, then came back, who hurt my family, then apologized, was one of the most daunting things I've tackle. How do you tell the person that you love in spite of the ghosts, whispered secrets and hidden anger, that they are imperfect, slanted, a cracked rock with grey, aging slivers, where feelings, like water, still runs deep and cold?
He didn't answer and I hung up quickly hoping caller id wouldn't identify my call. I choked on a deep breath which reminded me that I hadn't been breathing. I had escaped once again, left the ghosts locked safely in the closet for yet another day.

But not an hour later my phone rung and that voice which has frightened me, comforted me, encouraged me for almost half a century gently called my name. "Tina, did you call?"

Of course I'd called, "Not wanting anything important", except to tell you some truths about myself that I haven't been about to share because they're a lot about you. I stopped breathing again. But I had worked towards this moment. I hadn't rushed it or pushed it, I had just made myself available for it happen.

Year after year, moment after moment, I had worked towards this forgiveness.

In my head I had thought about what I would say. I knew the words, memorized them, internally practiced them, thoughtfully planned them. But they stumbled out, awkward and childish. He listened patiently, answered gently, his voice full of sadness and fear, and I forgave because that is what I worked toward.

The ghosts were gone. Thin veils of white, almost see through skins layering our relationship with awkwardness and half lies. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but the most rewarding. For the first time in years I felt clean and honest, no longer the hypocrite asking women to confront their relationship with their father, yet fearfully refusing to do the same.

I would never advise another woman, or man, to make this phone call. Each of us have our own level of "work" that we have to do. But I would encourage you to work towards the one thing which can bring you closure, contentment and peace. Forgiveness towards yourself, your father, towards God, and begin to flower into the woman or man that you were born to be.

What forgiveness are you working towards?

Peace and Gratitude,
Tina