I am angry.
This exact sentence, three words, has come up three times today, and the day is not even done yet. The first appearance was in a class session that I had following a journal prompt to write out ten pieces of baggage, weaknesses, that you are carrying with you into the upcoming season of your life. This came out near the end of what I was writing, you know, when you start to get really honest because you’re running out of things to say. We were then to invert them, take those weaknesses and reframe them as strengths. But the sentence, I am angry, sat with me the whole session. Such a blatant embrace of a feeling that I have repressed throughout the entirety of my life.
We broke off into small groups where one of my partners in the activity asked what each of our relationships to anger are. My honest answer to that was silence. I pull away, taking my anger, and I protect it as if it is something that others are not welcome to experience. My wrath, my rage, those are fires that I keep within myself, feeding the fire periodically, reflecting upon the flames during the darkest of nights.
It’s ironic, really; some people spend most of their lives learning how to quiet their anger. I am at a point where I am realizing that I need to learn how to express it. The term feminine rage comes to mind, and I see why it becomes a common term for women as they age. Many spend the majority of their early years withholding this part of themselves as a means to be palatable to others, to allow themselves to fit into society without causing a ruckus. Fulfill the roles that have been imposed upon you without much thought or consideration. Sometimes that feminine rage births apathy. For others, there comes a point where the fire can no longer be contained. It seems I fall within the latter.
The manifestation of that is that I resent a lot of the things that I have built in my life because rather than feeling like security, they feel like a cage. I don’t want to live in a decent-sized house in the suburbs full of furniture without stories. I want a cabin in the forest full of things that have lived a life of their own. The education that I have is in law, business, and finance, but I want to work with people and the earth in a way that feels meaningful to my soul.
Life has a funny way of illuminating your path forward. Sometimes it violently removes you from continuing to walk within the wrong space. So, for now, I intend to spend some time taking this rage of fire and inverting it, as I did in the exercise, into passion.
Until tomorrow 🖤
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