Holding the anger
2019 has been heavy with anger and fear. Waiting, limbo, work exhaustion, and anger feels easier to carry than hope sometimes.
I wake up already braced. My chest is tight, my jaw set. I try to move through the day as if I’m calm, but it’s an act. The truth is I’m carrying anger. Old anger, sharp and hot, and it leaks into how I hold myself and how I speak.
I know the language: let go, forgive (me, who?), find peace. Simple words, but when you’ve lived with fight or flight for so long, the body doesn’t release it because you’ve asked nicely… grief and mental health aren’t linear.
There are moments though.
A walk, a book that pulls me in, a sudden laugh. The emotion loosens its grip. For a second my body forgets and I remember what it is to breathe.
Sylvia Plath once wrote, “I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me.” I understand that.
The really hard work isn’t pretending it isn’t there, in my experience, finding ways to live with it and still keep moving... that’s the ongoing process.
Allana x
