By Angie Cartwright
In my deepest of truths, I
thought that if I could stay angry in grief then there would be no pain. I have learned that anger is a way to survive
above the grief. You can’t touch me when
I am in this place. It shields me from all reality. My anger, a feeling like any
other, is pain. It’s a painful emotion that
fuels all my other feelings. It keeps me
from them at the same time it throws me directly into them. Beneath the
anger is my fear, fear of what will happen, what won’t happened, and what just
happened.
So this is what grief is for me. My heart hurts. The anger lessens but leaves me feeling raw
and vulnerable. My tears begin to flow.
So this is what it is to be human. I feel vulnerable, raw, messy, scared, lost,
and alone. Why do I reject these
feelings? They are a part of who I am,
just like happiness. When I push away
the “bad’ feelings, they get worse. When
I permit myself to feel the “bad” feelings, they visit and leave.
So here is another truth deeper
than the deepest: I want to live, and
feel. In order for me to do that, I have
to accept all of me. I am a human being
made with many feelings. To live and
feel, I have to experience whatever comes my way.
I know it’s easier to write
about this than to actually do it, that’s the truth. So today I will try to embrace my humanness,
not just some of me but all of me. My
healing depends on my honesty, and I can’t worry about what others think. My life depends on it.
